Title: In Astonishment and Wonder
Author: Tiamat's Child
Word Count: 200
Warning: None.
Summary: An envoy of the Ekumen comes to the four nations.
Notes: Written for challenge #78: "the OC" at theavatar100 at LiveJournal. I decided to interpret the challenge as standing for "Obscure Crossover". This, being a crossover with Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish novels, is not as obscure as it might be, but, hey. Obscure is as obscure does.
In Astonishment and Wonder
On the fifth night out from the capital Pooja was shaken gently awake by the steamer's captain. His square, solid hand folded over her shoulder so that, for a muddled moment, she thought she was again a child in India, and her father had come to wake her.
"Professor," the captain said, low, "Come. There is something you should see."
So she stood, clumsy with the softness of the great boiler's heat and the edges of sleep, and followed the captain as if she were a newborn calf. (Which indeed she was, so far from Earth.)
"There," the captain said, when he had handed her up the swaying steps and steadied her across the deck. "That was the Airbenders', once."
She looked, and saw off the starboard side an island that slid upwards toward the stars, slick and elegant and sharp. The moon lit its mountains, made them glow white and gray against the sea's dark glimmer. A cold sea wind blew to her, and she shivered, her bare toes curling against the deck, her breath short.
"Are they all gone, sir?" she asked, small as a child.
"All, professor," the captain said, and her heart broke at his loss.
