A Study in Brevity

by LoquaciousQuark

A collection of mostly gen drabbles with a wide range of subject matter. Impermanence: Zuko wonders, sometimes, about the talismans they keep for themselves.

11. Conception

Title: Conception

Word Count: 150

Summary: All good stories begin with "once upon a time."

Challenge: N/A

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Once upon a time, when the world was younger and darker and wilder, the spirits walked in human form, shaping the earth and giving life to the four nations.

But one by one, they returned to the spirit world, and in their absence the earth fell into terrible chaos, and the gods planned its destruction.

But peaceful Pyoung-Hwa, who loved her children, stepped forward and said I will live as one of them, dying and being born, and I will guide them, and the gods grieved, because to become mortal sacrificed her memories and exiled her from the spirit world forever.

But Pyoung-Hwa was determined, and she entered a mother's womb, and the child who was born glowed with wisdom. And she grew, and brought peace to the tired world, and when she died, Pyoung-Hwa remembered herself and prepared for birth again.

This is how the first Avatar was made.