Here we have another losing Avatar Spirit Drabble Contest entry. The theme was "Missed Opportunities" but the most interesting requirement was to "write this drabble focusing on only one color, but never tell me the color is red or use the word 'red' (or crimson, rosy, etc.) This will forces you to be descriptive by paying attention to objects, feelings, and people. For instance, tell me about how Ty Lee tugged at her cute circus pants while blushing. See how I never used the word 'pink'? "
The Infinite Center
To most, the world was no emptier for the loss of the Air Nomads. These people had a narrow vision, seeing only the feathery clouds that hovered above their heads, bringing rain and mists and, most often of all, filtered light. Their towns and cities stood near growing vegetation, because even in the war to end all wars, people had to eat.
For the few who looked at the open skies, who lived in the places between the settlements, the world had become a void.
Pathik, honored as Guru, sunk deeper into meditation and looked at the shape of the clouds.
They were heavy clouds, as the world had become much heavier since the Comet showed its light. Lands that shined brightly in its wake had now fallen dead. Bones littered the ground, and ashes rose on the winds. The clouds grew, and choked out the sky behind them. The center of the rainy swirl was the darkest part of all.
There was less and less room every day, for those who lived in the places between the places.
The eye of Pathik's mind was focused on the central vortex. Its circular shape was betrayed by forks of lighting, reaching out like the collapsing skeletons of unfinished towers. The light reflected in the clouds, adding flesh to the bones of the lightning, turning the vortex into a star. It was an evil star, with an event horizon in its center.
The points formed a compass.
Pathik hesitated in the center of the swirl, unsure which of the four points to chase. He was guided only by a vision, of a memory-to-be featuring himself and a young boy who wore the last of the Nomad Arrows. The scene around was the stone of one of the Air Temples, but now all of them looked like they were made of the same dirty clouds. North was South was East was West. All were dead, all were empty, and all were forgotten by all but the man people called Guru.
It had become a colder world, for the people who once had friends between friends, a network of shared love.
Which direction to choose? Which point of the star? Which lightning fork would take Pathik on the proper path? If he chose wrong, he would wait too long for the Avatar to come. Evil was growing like the storm clouds, massing and expanding, and if Pathik waited for too long, not even a wind as strong as the Avatar could push the storm away. The storm would be too big, and the wind too weak, before the light of the comet bled through the clouds again.
The sooner he found the Avatar, the better. The more he could teach to the boy, the more the Avatar could accomplish.
Which direction to choose?
In his last communication, Gyatso had said that his Aang, his beloved boy, was being sent to the Eastern Air Temple. Had the boy gone? He was missing from the world now, the wind that had carried him now lost in the swirl of the storm. Perhaps the boy had run East, or would go there when he returned?
Yet, Aang's past was in the South.
East or South, the future or the past, the clear skies or the storm. Lightning once again flared on the axes of the storm, and the compass points stabbed into each horizon.
Maybe the North? The boy had run, and perhaps the familiar, in either the past or the future, was too much for him. Or would he be consumed by vengeance, and go straight to the Fire Nation, in the West?
North, South, East, or West.
Four elements, all one storm.
Pathik had to choose.
He had to choose right, or be too late. Even if the flash of the lightning had not yet appeared, the air would excite, and the heavy clouds would form in the sky. Pathik had to be there, to teach, before the clouds could begin to surround the Avatar, to begin dragging him into the swirl of the event horizon.
The spaces in between the places were too empty to home to find him there.
East. That was the where the sun rose. The Guru would wait in the East.
END
