Title: "Fifty"
Rating: K+
Summary: Fifty sentences for Avatar, each based on a word given by a random word generator and involving any character or characters I thought fit the prompt, without any names.
Characters/Pairings: Various, but mostly gen.
Warnings: Mentions of character death, and references to the graphic novels and Legend of Korra.
Fifty
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1. mild
His voice is soft, the lines of his face smooth, childish, and prone to bursting into smiles, and he bends and twists and tumbles in clever compromise before he breaks—some might call it weakness, but when she guides his arms through the flow of water and feels the way they follow hers, the way they change and bend upon a moment's notice just as the waves and the raindrops do, she knows better than any of them that it is his greatest strength.
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2. nostalgia
Home, his nephew murmurs, eyes softening with a dreamy glaze that makes his heart ache (boys his age should still have the luxury to dream, to look like this), but his own narrow instead, knowing that some of the most beautiful and sweet-smelling flowers are poison and some memories, the happiest he suspects his nephew has—screams of laughter, the roll of the ocean, a warm hand resting absently on his shoulder—are best forgotten.
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3. loan
I'll let you borrow him; he can fly you across; see you later, buddy; his own remembered words slice into him as he lies alone with a gaping hole in the darkness next to and inside him, wondering how, even for an instant, he could have stood to let him go.
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4. suicide
Even if he lives, it will be as a failure; the darkness was his destiny, so he only stares at the pale hand offered to him, colored mockingly with the precise shade of moonlight—you and your fool's honor again, boy—and as he falls he sneers to himself what the prince must know better than anyone: there is no reason to live without your destiny.
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5. bog
Brother and sister had seen lost loves and mothers in the fog, but he told her years ago that what he had seen was her; now feeling the heaviness of his light body nestled in earth, the stillness of feet that will never hover so annoyingly over the ground again, she wonders why, if the swamp was supposed to show them visions of the ones they had lost, she had to lose him first.
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6. video
Nations away, he sees the movers, too, with an pair of uneven golden eyes grown wise, and smiles faintly when he remembers the Hero of the South he knew, armed not with bending but with a mind and heart stronger than any water whip.
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7. plaster
At first he frowns through the caked prettiness on his face, but when he remembers the paint he used to plaster on his face, trying to look as much like a man as those who still towered above him, and the tremor of pride in his father's voice as he placed the boomerang in his hands, and hears her speak the same way about silk thread and golden insignia, he thinks to himself that maybe this won't be so terrible, that maybe strength can be beautiful, and beauty strong.
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8. emulator
Once upon a time, he had tried to be like his sister, hurling rocks at the turtle-ducks and mimicking the cutting drawl of her voice, but he has always failed at lying, at being anyone other than himself, and he understands the second time around that that is why he failed his father (I guess I'm not very good at impersonations).
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9. disposable
So I was, too, she thinks as her shoulders shake uncontrollably with sobs and screams that sound nothing at all like her, and tries not to see the way her brother turns away from her—weak, he was always weak, but I wasn't, I WASN'T—in sorrow.
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10. import
It's like the two of them aren't even people anymore, he thinks grimly under the dirt dripping slowly from the flowerpot, dirt that feels much the same on his head as his newly grown hair; they might as well be goods smuggled into the Earth Kingdom for all their use, and branded with the inscription: Made in the Fire Nation.
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11. hang
The boy in orange dangles from the glider like it's a part of him, he realizes in awe, green eyes widening into a grin as he leans back in his chair and takes off after him; the air may not be a part of him like it is the other boy, but he is a part of it, matching its every gust with the breath of laughter.
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12. play
"You're still a kid!" he laughs in reply as the ice slides by beneath black flippers, and her eyes widen momentarily as she realizes just how much she needed the reminder.
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13. emptying
He has always liked the flavor of a face: like drinking from a glass, tipping it back into his throat and gurgling until he can wrap his tongue around every emotion, crunch every thought between his teeth and swallow every memory, but it always leaves such an unpleasant aftertaste on his (new) lips afterward when he reaches the end, like a reel of film, cleansing his palate with the bitter tang of fear and the sweet wash of sorrow.
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14. closing
His last words are a lie, which is laughably fitting, but what bothers him most are the colors blurring and fading around him—it's not the going down that he minds, he wants to scream in rage, but that he expected to go down burning in a sea of red, not green.
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15. rhythm
They will never be the same again, she knows, remembering the almost acrobatic pitter-patter of the boy's feet on the cave floor, and hides a smile at the way her classmates' fingers now drum so rebelliously on their desks during history, feet tapping the rhythm of half a dance under their chairs.
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16. imbalance
The world isn't the only thing that's out of balance, she thinks as she rocks forward on her fingertips, feet swinging effortlessly in the air; their auras seethe and crackle with streaks of color that threaten to tip her over her careful tightrope; balance, she thinks, smiling, and walks the razor edge of fear.
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17. falling
She cries, then, because of the way it's going to happen—not with a grim smile and a last blast of rock to take them down with her, but with nothing around her and the whole world his fingers; this was not the way it was supposed to happen, not a warrior's death surrounded by her element but with nothingness—
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18. boundary
Just as the city could only be taken down from the inside, it can only be reclaimed from the inside as well, and rebuilt slowly, he thinks with a smile, one cup of tea at a time.
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19. accent
She speaks with the two voices she has learned to cultivate: one gentle and feeble like they want her to be, and the other rumbling like an earthquake and hitting with the twang of pebbles against glass as she spits and heaves her arms in the air like the champion she is.
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20. sundry
His father wanted to gaze down on a map and paint it all red, red with a comet's fire and red with the blood spilled from centuries of life, but he sees the world as it is: four elements, colors as plentiful as dragon-flame, and more names and stories than he can count from a faraway throne.
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21. equilibrium
The world is in balance again, she has brought it back to equilibrium, but if the moon lingers closer to the water on some nights than it should, or dangles behind a white silhouette flying through the sky and seems to follow it through the clouds, perhaps a boy with wind-beaten skin and young blue eyes still trained wistfully on its light will notice.
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22. willing
That's how he likes them, normally: willing to do anything he and his easy words want them to, but this boy's jaw is set in stubbornness, a whole world of anger buried in the rasp of his voice, his back stiff and rigid as he himself is adaptable, wrapping nimbly around tree branches and between the nooks and crannies of what people don't know they already want to give him, and maybe that's what makes him smirk and ask yet again, determined to have him.
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23. pie
The others think she's joking again, but this time she really means it, seeing them all: the overbearingly gentle footsteps that feel like waves crashing on rock, the careful swagger of a leader who has finally fumbled his way into confidence, the light, soaring gait that she can barely feel but knows is there anyway, the stride of boots coming down regal and determined that can halt at a moment's notice and tend to something with care, and the slow and steady tread of a man who knows he still has all the time in the world left to stop and help others along his way; they do all look perfect to her—and oh, she adds, before all of this starts getting a little too touchy-feely for her sensibilities, and the squish of the berries between her teeth when she plops them in her mouth and shamelessly licks the juice off her fingers isn't so bad, either.
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24. dread
As bladders fail and pants are lost and screams are muffled in the fleece of unsuspecting sheep, she can't help but muse that only he with his cheer and creativity could make the choking terror of dread so much fun, smiling gently as he does when he finally drifts into sleep.
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25. laugh
It's not that all of his jokes aren't brilliant and hilarious and equally deserving of love, but there is a certain sense of pride in being the first one to make the frowning prince open his mouth and laugh.
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26. pant
Swords and hooks lock in perfect intimacy and breath comes hard, and even though he swallows the fire roiling in his stomach, he's sure that both of them are thinking of more than flames at the waves of heat coursing from his body to the other boy's (I'm sorry it had to end this way, he never has the chance to say).
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27. significance
He wonders how she doesn't see it in the way he looks at her, how glaringly obvious it must be when his eyes find hers and linger a second too long, how a smile tugs goofily at the corners of his mouth before he can shove them back down—but this is not what he needs most right now, she tells herself, and makes it her duty only to hold him, to help him, to heal him; the rest will come in time she believes (must believe) they will have.
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28. news
It broke him completely, he who had been the golden son, the hero of war, who had never seen a day of hardship in his life, and whose young charge with deeper frown lines than anyone his age should ever have has seen too much of it (he knows, then, that his nephew will succeed where he failed).
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29. telling
The scroll slips from his fingers, and he casts a single glance back at the one thing he is sorry to leave behind, the one person who let him be who he was and not who the rest of them wanted (a girl who learned to show no emotion toward anyone except him, a monk who taught him to laugh like the child he never had time to be).
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30. cramp
She grins unrepentantly as he, for all his royal airs, leans down and takes her cramped feet into his perpetually warm hands; payback time, she cheers to herself, leans back, and crosses her arms behind her head with a blissful sigh.
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31. beginner
Some people have never been beginners (he who surpassed his masters at the age of ten, she who never really needed a master in the first place), but she can say with pride that she has fought through hard work and discipline for what she can do, and when he asks her one morning with a small, hesitant smile if he can join her by the stream, when she watches the set of his jaw and the way he always pushes his fists forward a little harder than he needs to so that flames dance over their own reflection in the water, she knows without a doubt that, like her trust in him, he has never won anything he didn't have to fight for.
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32. cure
There are times when he regrets not making his choice earlier, if only for the unspoken promise of cool brown fingers brushing over tender skin—but when he remembers what the water was used for in the end, he knows he would give up a thousand chances for an unblemished face for the life of a friend.
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33. profit
He glares bitterly down at the ocean and at the huge battleship receding into the dawn to rejoin its fleet, to be lionized with fame and power while he, alone and stranded, fights for the last scraps of life he has.
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34. transition
When the baby girl is born into her tribe, shooting flame and melting chunks of icy wall, digging holes and moving tiny mountains in the ground, and spilling water that freezes in ribbons, all before she turns a decade old, she takes her into her care with a warm smile and open arms, lets her sit on her lap and tells her the old tales of the tribe, but though her voice is loud and brash (different) and she punches the air with a vehemence she has never seen (not in him), whenever she peers into those young, eager eyes she still looks for gray, for warmth as deep as the oceans they traveled and light as carefree as the wind (some friendships really do last more than a lifetime).
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35. slope
Failure is a slippery slope, she has always said with a smirk, I mean, just look at my brother—he had the luck to be born, and it all went downhill for him from there; now she's slipping, slipping, and because she has never learned trust, fingers scrabbling blindly around her, she only throws fear back at the hands that try to catch her.
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36. flexibility
"Life happens wherever you go," he says to the boy scowling beside him, but though he only smiles at him through the flowers in his arms, growing where they were planted, he understands (remembers the day his own life ended, all but extinguishing his flame, until the same boy who walks next to him, kicking sullenly at the ground, reminded him of the simple fact that there is always something to smile for).
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37. fringe
One hair out of place, she repeats to herself, fingers clenched and shaking around the scissors, remembering the two old women's words, one hair out of place, but there will be no hair to be out of place once she's done with it, not a single thing or person out of place; she will be perfect, as perfect as she is alone.
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38. advert
After long nights spent telling stories about everything they've missed over the years, and times when he simply rests his head on her shoulder with her fingers through his hair and words are not needed, he asks with an awkward smile creeping up his face (the kind that always did whenever he tried to tell a joke; much has changed since he was a boy, but not that much, she is glad to see), "Mom, you know what the troupe should put on for their next play? …The Boy in the Iceberg."
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39. fresh
The leaves are crisp and cool as they should be, and he sighs with delight as he presses them against his cheek, fingers caressing each and every one of their bumps and ridges—and then the mad airbender kid comes wheeling through the street (he could care less who he really is), barrels into the cart, and destroys his livelihood all over again with a cheerful apology that all but drowns out his cries of despair.
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40. interior
He grew his hair long and stately like all of his predecessors, one in a long line of their nation's history, and the beginnings of a beard had begun to sprout from his chin—until he looks in the mirror one morning and sees in the glint of sunlight his gaze sharp and the point of his chin made deadly, painting his face with an artificial sneer he had hoped never to see again.
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41. here
Their energy is still here, even if none of them are; he has been here before and he will come here again, he can feel it as sure as the cool stone against his calves and the wind whispering sunset into his ear (four points around the earth and laughter scattering between all of them); of course they are here, because what it means to belong nowhere, to call nowhere truly home, is that they have always been everywhere.
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42. dish
"Roast duck," chuckles the old man who makes them tea and pokes fun at his drawings with the rest of them when his eyes go wide, mouth dropping around his chopsticks, a decidedly unmanly squawk of joy escaping from his throat, "ah, yes, I thought so—I knew you for a meat lover right away. It's my favorite, too."
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43. crisis
When the crisis hits, she thinks protect and he thinks defend, and though those words both mean the same thing, they don't really, as she runs for the hut and he grabs a weapon to join the other warriors—both of them failed that day, but whenever they stand back to back in battle now, water and sword in hand, or clasp each other tight in their father's arms, they make a silent promise not to fail their new family now, to protect and defend them all.
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44. ring
Under the endless circle of blue and red and blue and red, they lift their heads until the backs of them almost touch, his hair long and dark and free-flowing, the other's smooth with the blue lines of his heritage, and colors soar above him, around him, through him, and though he comes from the hottest part of the world and his skin and breath always steam with heat he can't remember ever feeling this warm in his life.
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45. basic
"Remember your basics!" he calls out, and resists the urge to shake his head at the unnecessarily flashy blasts of orange that shoot the boy's way; people of the Fire Nation always did have such a flair for the dramatic.
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46. telescope
His uncle hums a tune behind him, tiles clicking between his fingers, and urges him to rest, to have a cup of tea, to do whatever other time-wasting nonsense his mind can dream up, as his good eye scours the sky for the sign of something (I'll know it when I see it, Uncle, I just will, stop bothering me!); what it is, who it is, doesn't matter—he doesn't care, only hopes that what he's looking for, whatever it is, will bring him home and stop the hollow aching (if not on his face, then) in his chest.
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47. arrogance
Nobody would know it now, of course, but he had to fight for his right to be arrogant, once; with a brother who mastered military strategy alongside fire as quickly as he mastered fire by itself, who was loved for his easy charm and sense of humor as much as for his power, he had had to hone his skills twice as sharp and five times as deadly, so when the moment came to strike he had learned the meaning of ruthlessness, mastered for so long with resentment as a teacher, and nothing else.
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48. centering
"Get off the edge! You're tipping us over!" the indignant cry sounds from his left, as the other boy snaps back, "Me?! You're the one who's leaning over all the time!" "Yeah, but we never had balance issues before you showed up!" and then her voice, arcing over both of theirs: "Do you guys ever stop arguing?" ("Me? You're the one who's always bossing us around!" "I do not!" "Yeah you do, sugar queen."), and he only smiles down at white fur and whiter clouds and grips the reins a little more tenderly as he says, "I think we have just the right amount of weight on board."
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49. badge
Sometimes when he misses them especially, he touches one, two fingers to the arrows on his hands and forehead and traces them along the dye, the last remnants of a home to which he can never return; he wears them proudly, and when his friends plead with him to throw the red headband over it he shouts back in their faces because the crimson fabric swallowing the last of the ink feels all too much like the Fire Nation erasing the very last traces of his people from the world.
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50. confine
His love for the world cannot be held within the confines of one lifetime, nor can the knowledge he has gained so many times, knowledge that gives him the freedom of air and the strength of fire, knowledge that has taught him to grow with the ebb and flow of water even as he endures like earth through the ages, and he is sure as he closes his eyes that he will find them again, perhaps not as they are but as they will be (a boy with serious eyes protecting what's left of his home, a brother overflowing with cheer and enthusiasm, a girl who needs only her own wit and resourcefulness to fight as well as any bender), for no matter how many times he has made this journey, he knows he has never made it alone.
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Author's Note:
Thanks for reading! Yes, I am a fan of Jet/Zuko - could you tell? And I can't help but think Sokka and Iroh would get along swimmingly, bonding over their sense of humor and love for food.
Credit goes to several LJ authors: white_knuckle for giving me the whole idea for this with their own "Fifty" fic, sophiap for inspiring #14 with her brilliant drabble about Jet, and may_flyer for inspiring #28 with a lovely drabble about Iroh.
This is my first fic for Avatar, along with my first time trying out the fifty-sentence challenge, so reviews would be greatly loved and appreciated! Please let me know which ones were your favorites, or if any were totally unclear. A certain amount of ambiguity is good, but not too much. There must be balance in the world, after all.