My mom was trying to talk me out of dying my hair black yesterday, and I said, "Would you hate black hair if mine was naturally black?" and she said, "No ones hair is naturally black, because black isn't a color, it's the absence of color. Everyone has some color in their hair, no matter how small."
We debated for a while, and when I woke up this morning, this came to me. My muse spoke, now so must I.
Black: The Absence Of all Color
When she woke up, it was to total darkness, like she was lost in a black hole. Waking up this time wasn't as bad as the others though, she was getting use to the nothingness that surrounded her. Katara had spent days, week, even months here, and time no longer meant anything. Waking up to blackness was the same as going to sleep to blackness, hope of leaving was like the food she received here; sparse and dwindling.
Color had always been something Katara had enjoyed, she loved the violent oranges that painted the twilight and the roses that lit up the morning, but memories of color were becoming dim, even memories of him were beginning to fade into the blackness. She remembered the last day they spent together…
"Don't peak!" Aang scolded, "I want this to be a surprise."
"I'm not, I promise."
Aang guided her between the trees and finally stopped her. He lifted the cloth that cloaked her eyes in darkness, and showed her what he planned for their anniversary.
They were in a small clearing in the trees in the middle of the Fire Nation, it was their first anniversary and he wanted it to be special. There were flowers surrounding a blanket that held all their favorite foods and candles softly lighting the fading sunset. Her eyes began to water as they sat down to enjoy their evening….
That was a week before it happened.
Now she was here and had been for what seemed like forever. Dying didn't scare the Master Waterbender, no, death she could handle. It was the thought of perishing in black that frightened her. She always thought she would go with Aang, wrapped in each others arms. But no, that was to good to be real. Like everything in her life, her death would be a hard one, wrapped in sorrow and regret.
The thing she regretted the most was Aang. The day she was taken, thay had a fight. It was probably something stupid, it didn't matter anymore, but she stormed out of the house and had been taken after only five minutes of walking.
She wasn't sure why they kept her here, or kept her alive. She did know that they wouldn't if she weren't apart of something bigger than herself, she was probably just bait, but she couldn't find it in herself to end her miserable life. She couldn't justify killing herself, even though she was sure it would save Aang, because she still clung to hope.
She still believed that she might make it out, might get to see the full moon rise above the earth, enriching her with its strength. But it was difficult to believe one would make it out of a situation like this and see any color, when one was trapped in the absence of it.
What she missed the most was not color, though she craved that too, she missed the little boy she had left behind, the little boy who was barely one. She missed the way he would throw his arms around her and squeal with delight when she made funny faces. And she missed his father, She missed Aang.
She was losing a battle within herself. She loved her little family, and she knew her Avatar would be doing anything in his power to find her. But he wouldn't. She was sure.
Wherever they were keeping her she knew, by touch that it was underground, it was also too deep for Toph to find. Toph. Katara had always wondered what it was like not to see, not to know what the sky looked like on a cloudless day, or to watch the rainbow come out after a storm. Now she knew.
The battle was won, though if it was a good thing, she didn't know. She did know that she had little strength left to do what she needed to do to save Aang. She quietly killed herself in a black hole, underground.
And just as she was slipping into a, this time welcome blackness, a white light came on, a blinding white light, every color dancing invisibly through it. A figure shadowed in the front walked in and knelt down besides me, and pulled me into his arms, crying silently and rocking us back and forth.
She looked up and saw a face she thought she would never see again and said hoarsely, "Blackness is the absence of light, but your face brings every color back."
Black is the absence of white
Your heart is a rainbow of light
Invisibly reflecting every color.