Obligatory Disclaimer: The wonderful world of Avatar isn't mine. Really, it isn't.
A/N: I've seen this sort of story used over and over again, as part of, or the entire story, and most of them go way above a few thousand. So, I thought I'd squeeze everything down to less than a thousand, and see if I could get anything useful out of it. So, goodbye first draft, and hello first edition. It's a slow going process towards a finished product.
For some reason, this became a series. Oh well.
Journey
The letter was received in Ba Sing Se, one of the many thousands that had been delivered to every corner of the globe. A simple letter on gold embossed parchment, with a seal of a flying boar stamped on one side, an ultimatum to a girl who has ignored all previous letters. Not enough to cause an uproar, but more than enough for a boy to offer to accompany her out of politeness, as he had with every letter beforehand. To his surprise, the girl agreed.
The journey started awkwardly enough, and when they had talked about everything other than the letter and the journey, the pair lapsed into a tense silence, each unable to find the right words to say to the other, each seemingly content watching the scenery crawl by underneath them. Circumstances aside, the journey would have been idyllic. Indeed, the occasional soul they came across had said so, feeding fuel to the rumors that had already swarmed the pair, and yet only a single wanderer had noticed the strange, uneasy silence between the two, and had asked the boy about it.
The boy managed to keep a straight face, but to the wanderer, he found himself unwilling to say anything of value. In fact, the pair left the wanderer a little more confused, and a raw cheek when girl had been the subject of his questioning.
At dawn, weeks later, the journey had reached its end. As the sky bison prepared for an easy descent into the fog strewn streets of Gaoling, the girl smiled at the boy, and for the first time in many days, spoke with a throat dry and unsure from underuse.
"This is it."
The lumbering sky bison merely hovered a few ways off the ground as the girl leapt unceremoniously onto the ground. The boy smiled uneasily back at the girl, and with great hesitation, spoke as well.
"I guess this is goodbye then." His voice cracked in the slightest.
He held out his hand, offering a small whistle to the girl. It was small, intricately carved with the likeness of the sky bison that bore them the entire journey: his own keepsake, now hers to keep. Reaching out, the girl instead pulled the boy down into a desperate embrace, her clouded eyes shining with unshed tears. A simple hug, a little too tightly to be platonic, a little too long to be friendly, and yet conveying between them everything that could not be said. Words weren't needed, nor were they voiced as the two shared a single moment that seemed to last an eternity.
Letting go, he placed upon her delicate hand the whistle, and closed it tightly with his own. He opened his mouth to speak, but choked on his words. He looked at her, then looked away, unwilling to meet the piercing gaze of her sightless eyes. He climbed back onto the sky bison without a word, looked back for one last time, and failed miserably at smiling. Silent tears fell, his eyes betraying emotions that she could never see. The sky bison needed no signal and took flight at once, roaring morosely as it went, as if to convey the very emotions its master had been holding back.
The girl waved her free hand weakly, pulling the whistle close to her heart. As the boy and his mount slowly faded from her senses, she stood her ground, weeping yet smiling bitterly as if a heavy burden had been lifted off her shoulders, a soft whisper to the wind that he would never hear.
"Goodbye."
A/N: The urge to change every aspect of it has been around since I first published it a few days ago, so before this gets too entrenched, I decided to change it. Feedback is much appreciated, since I find this form of fiction tricky to balance. 'Tis hard to keep all elements of a story together when you don't have the space to do so.
...uh...
Review!
