Title: the making of a face
Disclaimer: Naturally, I don't own ATLA.
Pairing: Kuruk/Ummi
Summary: In which Koh snatches a bride and steals her face.
AN: Koh, you slippery thing, you. He's such a mysterious spirit that one can never get tired of trying to grasp his motives.
So. Thanks for reading, hope you'll enjoy this.
Newly snatched from the altar, the young woman now lies sprawled on the ancient, holy soil, her dark brown hair falling in beautiful pools around her shoulders. She's beautiful, as Koh has never been, as Koh never will be.
"Well?" Koh says. "He has to be punished, you know."
The woman sobs. Those large brown eyes fill with tears. She brings a rumpled sleeve up to her face, smudging the kohl lining her eyes. When her hand falls away, there are dashes of black against the blue silk sleeves of her ornate wedding gown.
Beautiful, Koh thinks. Beautiful. She is beautiful in her finery, beautiful in her misery, beautiful in the impending fate that swings its noose over her head.
"Spare him," the woman says at last. "Take me. Take me."
Koh cackles. "Your face in exchange for his life."
She loves him, this pretty young one. She loves the merry, light-hearted, irresponsible Avatar. And so she dooms herself.
She nods, coral-red lips pressed together. She cannot quite bring herself to speak.
Koh rubs his palms together, papery skin against papery skin. In an instant, the woman lies at his feet, blank skin where her face used to be.
Now, her lovely face lies cradled in his hands, the hair trailing against the rough skin of his arms like a swirling river.
She is gone, the Avatar's beloved betrothed. Her face hangs among the arches of Koh's fortress, smiling out over the tree roots and heedless spirits who unknowingly enter the Face Stealer's dark domain. Her soul wonders someplace deep in the woods of Koh's design, in a maze she will never escape.
Now she treads still those dark, starless paths, trapped in the shadows and the half-light, fleeing from dark things she has no names for. Still she calls for Kuruk, but of course he never answers. He will never answer, now, but she doesn't know that, for time has no meaning in her little prison deep in Koh's serpentine realm.
She whose beauty lit up the world is gone, a faceless wraith now. No one will ever see her again. But they who wonder into Koh's hungry arms will see her face, and feel lust in their loins before the moment of their own doom.
And this, Koh reflects, will immortalise the woman Ummi. Her beauty, so illuminating, so sparkling, will forever be a treasure in his hoard and a testament to his powers.
Beautiful, he thinks, how beautiful this all is. He puts the face on, arranges the thick hair, and heaves his many legs out of the cavern and into the grey misty land, in search of his next victim.
For someone is nearing.
-Fin-