Pillar of Smoke

by Avalon76

Aunt Wu sees all in the clouds. [It's whether or not she tells the people of what she sees that makes the difference between a lie and a half truth.]

Pillar of Smoke

By xannychan

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Short A/N: Short, short one-shot. (I know I had said that I wouldn't be writing too much in my profile, but all the stuff that's been going has inspired me, in some ways more than others.)

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Aunt Wu looks up into the clouds at the beginning of the year, her hands spread wide and the village waiting in anticipation.

In the distance, there is a pillar of smoke that rises into the sky.

"There will be a time of peace," she declares, and the people celebrate.

She doesn't have the heart to tell them that it will not be so today.

(When the smoke comes to smother their children that night, there is the unmistakable scent of burning crops and corpses.)