So, now that Maikka Week is over, I'm back to the Avatar Spirit Drabble Contest entries I've been stockpiling. This one failed on so many levels, I even considered not posting it. Ah well. At least I have a cool, popular new Avatar webcomic everyone can find linked in my profile.
Criteria:
Darkfics
Darkness- It's a darkfic, it should be dark. That doesn't mean over the top angst, in fact nothing can kill darkness faster than having it be so over the top I find himself laughing. (yes I am a horrible, horrible person) Sometimes, the slow, melancholy of despair can be more potent than the fires of trauma.
Reactions- How do the characters react to the darkness? I want them to feel realistic to the character. I am a great believer in Nurture over nature and that anyone has a breaking point, but if you have declaring that he wants blood for the blood spirit and is out to purge the world of the weak, you had better have a reallllllly amazing explanation. since you create, so any reaction can be "right" which makes it hard for me to judge. However, I don't like outright banning stuff, so if you have an OC, this requirement changes to convincing me that the OC is a full person, not a vehicle for the reaction you want.
Creativity. As always, new takes will be rewarded.
I'll admit, I'm not much for Dark Fic. I've done some dark stuff in the past, but only because the ideas for those fics came first, and just wound up being dark in nature.
Cracking
"Sokka! You're back!"
Katara's warm body slammed into his, her arms wrapping joyfully over him. Her face landed in the soft fabric of his shirt, but quickly pulled away to gaze up at him with those powerful eyes she'd always possessed. Was it his lack of reaction that drew her gaze, or did the new blood-soaked quality of his clothes revolt her? "Sokka? What's wrong?"
He tried to speak, because he always answered his little sister, and found that he had no idea what to say.
Armies rebuilt normal people into soldiers. To do that, they had to break you.
Sokka had three great loves in life- sleeping late, eating meat, and fooling around with his boomerang and club. Upon being accepted into the Earth Kingdom army, he was assigned to a recruit group and put through basic training, and quickly learned just how horrible his new life would be. Mornings began hours before the sun came up. Meals were limited to three instances of inadequate proportions, and the quality of the food had Sokka longing to wander off into the wilderness to hunt up some proper, unspoiled meat. He already knew how to fight with his own weapons, but the instructors insisted he learn the dao blade, and he spent whole days chopping and stabbing until his arms were numb. It didn't sound like much, but it was an effective formula for ruining Sokka's ability to think. He was always tired, always aching. When he slept, he dreamt of sword drills.
He also dreamt of his mother.
All the recruits came from tragic backgrounds. They had already been fighting the Fire Nation, defending their homes alongside their family, friends, and neighbors. They hadn't needed to join the army to help protect their livelihoods. Of course, the reason these men and women were now signing up for formal military service was because they no longer had homes to defend. In many cases, they no longer had anyone to stay by their side. As tale after tale of loss was revealed, Sokka found the memories of his mother's death coming back, escaping from behind the dark wall he had worked hard to maintain.
Sokka was breaking, and he hadn't even met the enemy yet.
Katara frowned. "You joined the Earth Kingdom armies? Why?"
"I didn't want to be like Aang." He looked over at the Avatar. "I'm sorry I got mad at you. I'm a runaway, too, now. I shouldn't have judged you like that."
Aang tried to wave away the apology. "It's okay." A frown worked his way onto his face, and his voice lowered. "Wait until you hear about my trying to learn Firebending."
Katara was still staring at her brother intently. "You left? Why? I mean, I'm glad, but..."
Sokka hadn't expected battlefields to be so filthy.
In theory, he knew that fighting alongside Earthbenders would mean a lot of dust and dirt flying around. Fires and explosions and oily smokes would be the Fire Nation's contributions to the atmosphere. Blood, of course, would inevitably be present on any fighting ground. Yet, the Water Tribe boy hadn't quite been able to imagine how all those elements would come together. The result was mud everywhere, black and clingy, of a consistency that felt disturbingly unnatural.
Technically, Sokka's group wasn't fully trained yet. He still wasn't comfortable with his dao. The Fire Nation, however, was on the move, and their training camp was in its path. The newer soldiers were joined by veterans, the ragtag remnants of forces that had failed to stop the Firebenders at the last checkpoint. They were a mix of Earthbenders and Warriors, young and old, soldiers and mercenaries.
The battle started as an ambush, with the Earthbenders shaking away a screen of brittle rock to reveal an army ready to pounce on the Firebending invaders. One of Sokka's first lessons, though, had been that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and it certainly proved true with this battle. The initial fighting went well, if thuds and screams and flames and rocks were considered good things, and breaking the flesh and bones of the enemy were good things, and seeing your fellow soldiers get hurt and die were good things. (Sokka decided right there that they weren't.) After the field had been properly soiled, a new element was introduced. Some of the Firebenders were armed with a small machine, a backpack contraption with what looked like a pressurized bladder of liquid on it. Sokka didn't get a chance to really examine it, though, before the devices were put into use and began spewing a glue-like liquid that further fouled the soil and air.
Then one of the Firebenders lit the stuff up.
It burned.
It burned slowly, Sokka decided. That was the only way it could stay on fire for so long, even as it stuck to dirt and rock and people. Certainly, the Earthbenders who came into contact with it screamed for a long time, as the fire systematically burned every last bit of their skin. The ground, too, just kept burning, herding the Earth Kingdom forces towards what would quickly become their final resting place.
That's when Sokka got his idea.
He shouted for the Earthbenders to call up a sandstorm. His noise quickly attracted the attention of one of the commanders, who either saw merit in the idea or figured that they had nothing to lose. There wasn't any sand around, but there was enough loose dirt and gravel to fill the air, and with all the remaining Earthbenders working together, the storm became something close to a force of nature. No one had trouble breathing, though; the Earth Kingdom forces improvised masks before the sand began flying, and the Firebenders wore full faceplates on their helmets for exactly that reason.
What the storm did do was starve the fires, and push back the horrible slow-burning glue when it was spewed from its launchers.
Of course, the storm also impaired vision. Despite everyone's uniforms, they were all reduced to vague shadows amidst the flying debris, devoid of color or even human form. All anyone could do was pick a shadow, and attack as hard as they could.
Later, Sokka heard that this battle contained the most instances of friendly deaths of any the commanders had ever experienced. At least the Fire Nation soldiers had all been beaten.
Not all the Firebenders were dead at the end of the battle. Many were merely injured. The Earth Kingdom forces had no means of healing their broken bones and severed limbs, and they would be moving out soon to join up with another segment of the army. Prisoners, frankly, were a liability, and many cases, a quick death would be a mercy. So the Earthbenders summoned a small boulder each, went around to each Fire Nation soldier, and finished them off with a loud crack of stone against Earth, and the softer cracking of splintering bones.
No one said that mercy had to be painless.
Sokka couldn't shirk that duty. He was a soldier, and being uninjured, had to do a soldier's duty. He took his club and sword over to the nearest Firebender, and looked down at the man. His leg was broken, crumpled in several places, and he was sobbing with each breath. Hearing that sound, Sokka chose at that moment that he could never be a true soldier. He was a Hunter, and would be true to that legacy.
So Sokka took out his whalebone knife, slit the man's throat, and held his hand as he died. It was over quickly. The sobs and bubbling trailed away, and the only sounds were the bursts of cracking as the rest of the army went about their work.
Sokka walked away and set off to find his sister.
Looking at Katara now, Sokka wanted to put into words what he was feeling. He opened his mouth to speak, but something stopped him from catching his breath, from making any sound. So he lowered his head instead, and sobbed into his sister's shoulder. It took a while before he could stop, but he knew she understood completely. She was great that way, and always had been. Her tunic absorbed his tears, and clean feel of the moisture against his face was a comfort by itself.
Later, Sokka pushed the memories back behind the same wall as his mother, and never brought the experience up again.
END
