Alright, no need for to many formalities; here is my one-shot of Katara struggling to find sleep and instead encountering the spirit world. Poetic without being totally un-understandable (is there a word for that?) It's pretty short but it's my first one so I am working my way up... Anyway...
The story is by me, the characters are owned by Nickelodeon and without further ado here is "Sleep".
Sleep
With fluttering eyelids and limbs of lead she laid; awake, under the cold reflection of the moon.
Her mind was dancing between rest and consciousness in the silvery night.
As badly as she wanted sleep to find its way into her body she could not yet surrender herself, something held her down to the mortal earth where she lay, ensconced in her sleeping bag.
She shifted to her side and surveyed the grounds around her; there lay her brother showing signs of deepening sleep as he snored monstrously. And close by was her dearest friend, a boy with so many things filling his mind that it was a wonder he could sleep at all. Yet she found herself unable to move, unable to dream, and unable to think clearly in the dead of this night.
What had been going on in her still inexperienced mind when she decided to throw away her life of normality? Rushing off to what has seemed like her once-in-a-lifetime role in saving the world as she knew it… stopping a hundred year war. And now here she was, with the motions of a lifetime of events she had played through seeming like a blur in the deepest of navy skies.
Like that with one final memory of a long ago moment when the moon faded to red in the heat of battle one night, she fell unto sleep and unto a new experience.
Falling through an endless storm of flashing lights and fearful forms she fell, or was she rising? She could not tell as she was transported from the coziness of the familiar world into a world strange and new.
She found herself quickly in a place unseen by most, where strange creatures filled the trees and reflections unknown to her inhabited the surface of the murky waters. But as the young girl stood in awe and fear of what was around her, a shadow formed that was almost alarming and almost too amazing to believe.
The heavenly figure of her mother, lost long ago, came from the shadows. The girl wanted to run, wanted to grab at the chance to see her again, but the excitement contained in her could not break free of the zombie like trance the girl had been transfixed to. Instead, movement came in slow motion and tears rolled, one by one, down her cheek as she approached the specter, could it have been a soul, perhaps a spirit even?
A spirit, pure and glowing; shown to her by the graces of something bigger than she could fathom had appeared. Her mother's beautiful face smiled and her arms extended to embrace the child the she had to leave behind so many years ago.
With that vision the girl broke into a run that still seemed too slow and reached her arms out as well, finally after moments too long to bear she reached her mother and joined in an embrace. No words were shared or needed.
The embrace lasted for what could seem like hours but still was too short for the alienated mother and daughter. But as all good things must end this happy moment did as well. The girl felt the warmth of her mother's spirit fade away as well as her image and once again she felt herself fall back into reality and cross the line of dreams. But was it a dream really? Could it have been much more?
Her eyes opened and she found her surroundings to be once again familiar, but instead of a shining moon and dark heavens above, she spotted an orange globe of sunlight in a blue and yellow sky. Morning arose and so had she, from the sleep she had awaited and the sleep she now missed the most.