Lady Noir

Author: InfiniteSet

A/N: This is my first story of this style.

It seemed like something so… foreign when I learned about it. Alien, something I couldn't wrap my head around. Back then I think it was easy to say that something could be evil or good. This here is evil, that there is good. Yes, it was easy to think that way. Easy to demonize. Easy to be fooled. That's why this was evil, back then. Bloodbending. It was evil.

But back then I was full of that young, idolized sense of the world. Good, evil—this meant nothing. The world was not fair, not black or white. Instead the unfair world was shades of gray. I know this now, but as a child, how would I have known?

She was that woman in the night, splotched with red and brown, bleached by moonlight. She was that woman who was etched in sadness and colored in determination. Was she afraid, the day she ran into Bloodbending? Maybe initially she'd been paralyzed into stillness, like I was. Maybe she was stronger, maybe… she was paralyzed into action.

Was that…possible?

She told me that the power existed. That I would have to use it one day. That I would want to. To Bloodbend, back then, I couldn't understand why I'd want to. For what purpose?

Now I understand. A little, anyway, of the darkness that purged a once proud Waterbender. No… she is still a proud Waterbender. Maybe she was misled. Now that I too, am grown, will this power eclipse me? Turn me against that which I love?

Then again, she never got to go back to what she loved.

And I've already lost all of what I love. But at least Aang holds me at night. She had nothing... not even her health.

So did it matter that she was so angry? I know; I feel the remnants of the anger and fear and confusion from way back then… I know that she had been cruel. She was angry. As a child, I could only sympathize. I thought I knew. I thought I knew, but how could I really have known? Yet, I do not fully remember her anger... not in the way I should. I remember the laughter... not the expression itself.

But… how odd it is. Even though I saw the technique in the light of the full moon, I cannot see her face. Her figure, in my memory, is all black. Sharp, crystal clear, like it was just yesterday. But I can only see her face in the reflections in the water. Like a looking glass, it shows me her expression, her image… and no more. There is never turbulence in her looks. She knew, as I know, that what she was doing was neither right nor wrong. It was only what needed to be done. To live. To survive. To be truly happy.

I would like that too... happiness. I used to see it in Aang's eyes, but he's glassy now, icy. It's not his fault. Our happiness was stolen, even though we saved the world. He doesn't say much when I tell him this, but I think she was right. You must do what needs to be done to be happy.

In my mind, she is a darkness that swallows up the light. And the light... I think it is a lie. It's a misconception and she's the only thing that has ever ripped the light away. She defies the logic of the light. It had already betrayed her anyway. She was the Black Lady, the Lady of the Night.

Lady Noir.

I thought, back then, that I would never be betrayed by the light. It betrayed her because she was weak willed, perhaps, or because she was simply evil. But not that deep down within me, I knew that she was not weak or evil. The light betrayed her and she had once loved it. The light that I had so blindly followed.

Life begins and ends in death, I heard once. I never understood how life could sprout from death. I thought I did, but I was fooling myself. Once something is dead, it's dead. Only memories remain.

If you're weak.

If you're weak, then that's the end of it. Then life is over at death. Then life stops when the heart does.

But my heart hasn't stopped. Not yet.

If you aren't strong, then that saying is nothing but magical words. Wishful thinking. Death is death and life is life, but if you are strong, then you can create life where death once was. Then death could really be life anew.

Only on a full moon, with the powers of both Healing and Bloodbending does he walk and talk and smile again. But soon, I promise, I'll revive him for real. And Aang will live again.

In my memories, even though I cannot see her expression except when I look into the water, at least I can see her form. In my memories, I have no form. And in the water, I am a silhouette, a shadow.

Because of bloodbending, the light has betrayed me as well. But in this darkness I have found my path.

I do not need the comfort of the light. I too am a Lady of the Night. I too am a Black Lady.

Perhaps that is what all Waterbenders are meant to be.