325 word drabble: See the World
Jan. 22nd, 2011 08:53 am![[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 #19, Light.
Summary: It's inside her. She can't get it out.
Warning for depiction of addiction, PTSD, and the aftereffects of a battle.
See the World
They gave her own ship not long afterwards. She stood on the bridge and drank tea from a hipflask. Her new crew drank saki. Ty Yan used to drink saki. And they told her she got off light.
She felt light. Sometimes she felt so light she thought she could walk off the ship and over the water and never touch the waves.
Ty Yan drank more tea. The saki numbed that. It weighed her down until she couldn’t feel the air on her skin.
The Northern Water Tribe drew closer. Ty Yan drew closer to it, but she couldn’t feel herself move. She was trying so hard to stay still. Zhao’s fleet steamed on, her ship, crowded in with the rest. She breathed the coal smoke. It wasn’t air.
She didn’t see what was so bad about sailing with the Banished Prince, or how this was any better.
~*~
Ty Yan grabbed onto the scraps of wood bobbing on the water. The cold water burned on her skin, and she watched heads disappear under the water all around her waiting for her turn. The Water Tribe’s spirit monster stormed away, and she heaved a sigh, and heaved up seawater, and heaved at the sight of the bodies just under the waves.
She stripped off her armor and fished a canvas tarp out of the surf and wrapped it around herself, but it was wetter than she. And she shivered.
The wind howled all around, and she couldn’t let herself blow it wall away. She still...
~*~
She floated south with the flotsam to a colony with a bar, and drank. Everyone expected to see sailors drink. And she saw her crew vanishing into the water, and she saw her people burning alive, and she felt the air whirling all around her.
And she felt heavy.
Ty Yan drank until the air stopped whirling, but they didn’t stop burning, and they didn’t stop sinking below the waves.
avatar_500 prompt #19, Light.Summary: It's inside her. She can't get it out.
Warning for depiction of addiction, PTSD, and the aftereffects of a battle.
See the World
They gave her own ship not long afterwards. She stood on the bridge and drank tea from a hipflask. Her new crew drank saki. Ty Yan used to drink saki. And they told her she got off light.
She felt light. Sometimes she felt so light she thought she could walk off the ship and over the water and never touch the waves.
Ty Yan drank more tea. The saki numbed that. It weighed her down until she couldn’t feel the air on her skin.
The Northern Water Tribe drew closer. Ty Yan drew closer to it, but she couldn’t feel herself move. She was trying so hard to stay still. Zhao’s fleet steamed on, her ship, crowded in with the rest. She breathed the coal smoke. It wasn’t air.
She didn’t see what was so bad about sailing with the Banished Prince, or how this was any better.
~*~
Ty Yan grabbed onto the scraps of wood bobbing on the water. The cold water burned on her skin, and she watched heads disappear under the water all around her waiting for her turn. The Water Tribe’s spirit monster stormed away, and she heaved a sigh, and heaved up seawater, and heaved at the sight of the bodies just under the waves.
She stripped off her armor and fished a canvas tarp out of the surf and wrapped it around herself, but it was wetter than she. And she shivered.
The wind howled all around, and she couldn’t let herself blow it wall away. She still...
~*~
She floated south with the flotsam to a colony with a bar, and drank. Everyone expected to see sailors drink. And she saw her crew vanishing into the water, and she saw her people burning alive, and she felt the air whirling all around her.
And she felt heavy.
Ty Yan drank until the air stopped whirling, but they didn’t stop burning, and they didn’t stop sinking below the waves.
