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trans_92010-02-22 12:00 am
jesushasayak.livejournal.com) wrote in trans_92010-02-22 12:00 am
Entry tags:
The Thing In the Moonlight [warning for sort of graphic, creepy things]
The Nightmare King had found her, had sent some of his minions to hurt her, and Aang couldn't just sit back. Katara could take on anything--but only when she could actually fight it. Those things...those spirit things could touch without being touched, could hurt without getting hurt.
Except as Aang travels through the spirit world of the ship, he suddenly finds himself in a terrible storm.
It's a trap. He should've known it was a trap, but even if he had, he would have gone anyway, to protect her--just like all the times she ran right into danger to protect him.
Of course it's a storm. Of course. Just like how it'd all started--running away, the storm, the sea, the iceburg, and a hundred years of sleep. He can't fight his way free. Even all the Bending in the world can't save him. The force of the storm rips his glider from his grip and it goes sailing off in the darkness, and then he plunges into a black ocean. Breaking the surface, he gasps for breath, and tries to Waterbend himself up, but he has no Bending in this space. This is part of His domain that Aang's been lured into and now he has to fight his way free. The blue-black seas try to swallow him down, the waves roll over his head, and the water is an alien substance to him, inky and ugly.
But there's land ahead. He clings to the rocks near the shore and drags himself out of the water, then jumps from stone to stone, avoiding the waves trying to knock him back in, and makes his way to land. He finds himself suddenly on a mountainside--a familiar mountainside. The fields up in the mountains of the Eastern Air Temple where the bison sometimes grazed. The field is burning. Fire Nation soldiers storm through the buildings of the temple, with their boots stomping and Aang can hear the cruel shouts and the crackling fires.
The young monk can screams of the nuns, of the children, the bellowing of the bison, locked in their burning sheds.
He closes his eyes, trembling all over, fists clenched at his sides, shaking.
"I know what you're trying to do! It won't work. I've dealt with my grief! You can't use that against me--my people are gone, but Guru Pathik said love doesn't leave the world. My people will never leave me as long I remember them. You're trying to break me, like you always try, but it won't work!"
"Your grief, yes, but have you dealt with your guilt? Truly?" says a familiar voice, and Aang opens his eyes, and when he sees the figure that stands before him, he lets out a gasp of abject horror and disgust, recoiling back, his eyes wide.
Gyatso stands before him--or more accurately, the corpse of Gyatso stands before him, still burning.
"You abandoned us. You turned your back on the world," says Gyatso.
"I made a mistake," says Aang, now in tears. "I was scared. I set it right, I did the best I could. And you're not real. This isn't real--"
"It's the truth," says another voice, calm and sad, and there's a woman in blue, also burning, her face so familiar because he's seen it in the faces of her daughter and her son. "The truth is real," says Katara's and Sokka's mother as her face burns away. "You weren't there when we needed you. You set it right, but it wasn't soon enough for us. Where were you, Aang?"
"I dealt with this. I already forgave myself for this. I made a mistake. I made a mistake and all I could do was what I did. All I could do was--"
"Where were you, Aang?" Hands start to reach up through the dirt and bodies start to pull themselves out of the ground. Some wear green and yellow, some wear blues and white, so many wear yellow and orange. There are even many that wear red and black, bodies crushed by boulders, frozen into ice. All the rest, however, are burning. Some are not soldiers--many are the elderly, the young. Burning mothers hold burning babies.
When a war lasts for one hundred years, quite a few people die.
Too many to count. There are too many to count.
"Where were you, Aang?"
"Where were you?"
"Avatar--why didn't you protect us?"
Aang pulls back, tries to escape Gyatso, Kya, the tiny hands of Airbender children, tries to run away.
"You're good at running away, Aang," he hears Gyatso's voice behind him, as the tears run down his cheeks, but he can't run this time, he can't get away. Burning hands clutch at his robes, the press of bodies won't let him get away.
"I'm sorry," he says, thrashing, kicking, trying to get free. "I'm sorry."
"Where were you, Aang?" "Where were you?" "Why did you abandon us?"
Tears stream down his face, as he disappears in the press of bodies, as the flames crackle.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The sky-bisons bellow as the sheds burn.
"I'm sorry!"
It's only a moment, only a moment as Aang's will falters, but a moment is all He needs.
The black stone cracks.
Except as Aang travels through the spirit world of the ship, he suddenly finds himself in a terrible storm.
It's a trap. He should've known it was a trap, but even if he had, he would have gone anyway, to protect her--just like all the times she ran right into danger to protect him.
Of course it's a storm. Of course. Just like how it'd all started--running away, the storm, the sea, the iceburg, and a hundred years of sleep. He can't fight his way free. Even all the Bending in the world can't save him. The force of the storm rips his glider from his grip and it goes sailing off in the darkness, and then he plunges into a black ocean. Breaking the surface, he gasps for breath, and tries to Waterbend himself up, but he has no Bending in this space. This is part of His domain that Aang's been lured into and now he has to fight his way free. The blue-black seas try to swallow him down, the waves roll over his head, and the water is an alien substance to him, inky and ugly.
But there's land ahead. He clings to the rocks near the shore and drags himself out of the water, then jumps from stone to stone, avoiding the waves trying to knock him back in, and makes his way to land. He finds himself suddenly on a mountainside--a familiar mountainside. The fields up in the mountains of the Eastern Air Temple where the bison sometimes grazed. The field is burning. Fire Nation soldiers storm through the buildings of the temple, with their boots stomping and Aang can hear the cruel shouts and the crackling fires.
The young monk can screams of the nuns, of the children, the bellowing of the bison, locked in their burning sheds.
He closes his eyes, trembling all over, fists clenched at his sides, shaking.
"I know what you're trying to do! It won't work. I've dealt with my grief! You can't use that against me--my people are gone, but Guru Pathik said love doesn't leave the world. My people will never leave me as long I remember them. You're trying to break me, like you always try, but it won't work!"
"Your grief, yes, but have you dealt with your guilt? Truly?" says a familiar voice, and Aang opens his eyes, and when he sees the figure that stands before him, he lets out a gasp of abject horror and disgust, recoiling back, his eyes wide.
Gyatso stands before him--or more accurately, the corpse of Gyatso stands before him, still burning.
"You abandoned us. You turned your back on the world," says Gyatso.
"I made a mistake," says Aang, now in tears. "I was scared. I set it right, I did the best I could. And you're not real. This isn't real--"
"It's the truth," says another voice, calm and sad, and there's a woman in blue, also burning, her face so familiar because he's seen it in the faces of her daughter and her son. "The truth is real," says Katara's and Sokka's mother as her face burns away. "You weren't there when we needed you. You set it right, but it wasn't soon enough for us. Where were you, Aang?"
"I dealt with this. I already forgave myself for this. I made a mistake. I made a mistake and all I could do was what I did. All I could do was--"
"Where were you, Aang?" Hands start to reach up through the dirt and bodies start to pull themselves out of the ground. Some wear green and yellow, some wear blues and white, so many wear yellow and orange. There are even many that wear red and black, bodies crushed by boulders, frozen into ice. All the rest, however, are burning. Some are not soldiers--many are the elderly, the young. Burning mothers hold burning babies.
When a war lasts for one hundred years, quite a few people die.
Too many to count. There are too many to count.
"Where were you, Aang?"
"Where were you?"
"Avatar--why didn't you protect us?"
Aang pulls back, tries to escape Gyatso, Kya, the tiny hands of Airbender children, tries to run away.
"You're good at running away, Aang," he hears Gyatso's voice behind him, as the tears run down his cheeks, but he can't run this time, he can't get away. Burning hands clutch at his robes, the press of bodies won't let him get away.
"I'm sorry," he says, thrashing, kicking, trying to get free. "I'm sorry."
"Where were you, Aang?" "Where were you?" "Why did you abandon us?"
Tears stream down his face, as he disappears in the press of bodies, as the flames crackle.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The sky-bisons bellow as the sheds burn.
"I'm sorry!"
It's only a moment, only a moment as Aang's will falters, but a moment is all He needs.
The black stone cracks.
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It starts as a chuckle, just a chuckle, but then turns to something more like a giggle, and then into open, out-of-control, giggling laughter.
Someone should ask Leela to let them in on the joke.
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"Something funny?" he snapped, glaring at the girl who had been his...whatever...
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She laughs even harder.
"Almost as funny as the look on your face when I dumped your sorry ass."
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He opened his mouth but, for once, he was at a loss. No biting, sarcastic remark. No flimsy denial. Nothing.
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She looks up at him, and something oily and black covers her eyes and starts to drip out of her eyes and run down her face. It never stops.
"You will be alone. Abandoned once more. Always alone. Unwanted, un-needed, cast aside like the nothing you are."
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Cale's glare gives way to confusion and shock as he starts backing away from Leela. He felt a cold, stabby feeling in his chest as she taunted him. A feeling that was quickly followed by hurt-fueled anger.
"Go to hell...."
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"Everyone you love will die. Poor little bird, all alone in the cold, afraid of what he's going to be. You can't fight your future. You can't save any of them--and you can't save yourself."
She laughs again, maniacally, her voice deep and grating.
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"So, this is a neat trick. New one, too. Feel like telling us where you picked it up?"
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She starts to rise in the air, as if lifted by something and then they can see it, see through her body, like they have X-ray vision. It's a disgusting sight, organs pumping and blood pulsing, and black ooze filling in the cracks of her brain.
The ooze is coming from the translucent, wispy tentacles reaching through the back of her head and out through her eyes.
Oh, her eyes are still there, it's just, the tentacles are in the same space, somehow.
"My master knows your fears, my master knows your nightmares. Scream, child," she says to Yuri with a wicked grin. "He comes for you. He comes for you all."
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It's not her.
And if it makes him feel a little worse about jumping on her with Cale and helping him take her down, well. Can't have everything. At least he knows how to do it without hurting her too badly.
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Her crowing laughter echoes through Obs Deck where there should be no echo, and that's when it starts, when the nightmare starts to spread.