Chapter 19

The Mother of Chaos and Order

Sokka woke with a start. He was in a small seaside town in the Shadow Nation. The port had iced over so he and the rest of Jean's crew were stuck until the iced thawed enough to use the icebreakers. Looking around the room, Sokka searched for what had woken him. At first his eyes saw nothing out of the ordinary but on his second pass through he saw two big gold eyes looking at him. Sokka jumped and scrambled backward hitting his head on the headboard as the eyes suddenly became attached to the spirit woman he had seen in the ruins. She was beautiful in an unearthly way.

The woman moved like she was smoke or perpetually underwater. Her skin was the color of coal or chard wood, while her eyes and lips were gold. Sparkling gold. She wore nothing but seemed clothes and her hair was lightning tamed into threads of silk. The woman sat on the edge of the bed and surveyed Sokka; she looked unimpressed.

"You're supposed to be dead." She placed a delicate hand under her chin and pouted. "You can't deliver my message if you're alive. Why aren't you dead?"

Sokka looked around. "Um, not sure think I was saved but the Lady Jean and her crew. Also what was that message you had for Ira?"

"Ira?" The woman looked like she was about to laugh. "Ira? The north star with a name?" Her eyes were bright as she moved to sitting four feet above Sokka's bed. "The North Star has a name…" She glanced down at Sokka and smirked. "Well, things are a changing."

"Uh, yeah I guess they are." Sokka's eyes tracked the woman as she now started to pace around the ceiling. "Um, miss do you mind if I ask who you are?"

The spirit stopped. "Who am I?" She laughed. "Who am I?!" The spirit moved quickly so now they were nose to nose. "I am Life." She brushed a hand against his cheek. "I am chaos and order, good and evil. I am everything worth living for and every reason to die all in one."

Sokka blinked. "So you're a contradiction?"

The spirit rolled her eyes. "I guess if you must put a name to it but I am so much more. There would only be spirits without me, you would not have the avatar if not for my existence! I am the daughter of dark and light, love and hate, the dawn and the dusk." Her eyes became cruel. "I am Discord."

Sokka gulped. "You're mad aren't you?"

Discord chuckled and drifted back so that she was now sitting at the end of his bed. "I'm only mad to those who are blind to the true nature of spirits." Her eyes glistened. "But you can't help but be that way, you know nothing of the old guard, or the old gods that came before them." She sneered. "The closest you get to the might of those great spirits are those weakling lantern bearers." She shook her head. "Shame really. All those stories, just fading to dust. No one bothering to listen to them."

Sokka gulped trying to think of the best way not to anger discord. "Um, well I'm here, I can listen."

Discord looked at him up and down and then she looked into his eyes. Deep into them that he felt her looking at the inner most workings of his soul. She sat back after a moment. "You have fire in you little ghost." She tilted her head to the right. "I know you." She tilted her head to the left. "I see you now." Then she nodded. "I guess I can tell you one story for now." She sat cross-legged on the bed and suddenly the two were floating in the midst of the cosmos. She eyes glowed gold and Sokka felt his whole being energized. "This it the story of how I created all of you lowly creatures."

Sokka gulped, maybe he should not asked for a story.

"Long before the spirit of time started counting the seconds there was only one plane of existence, and I the great spirit of Discord ran free under my parent's watchful eye….

.o.

"Discord?" A woman with black and white hair walked down a garden path, the tips of her red and white wings dragging behind her. "Child where are you?" "I'm here!" Discord looked up from her work by the pond's edge. She was young looking covered in mud but happy. "What do you want mother?"

The woman paused. "I was coming to see what you were up to, I had heard rumors that you were up to something."

Discord kicked a small object into the water. "I'm not doing anything." Her dirty skirts covered some more objects. "Nothing at all, Mother."

The woman frowned. "Discord, my child what are you doing at the banks?"

Discord looked down and moved her skirts reveling small figures the looked like the high spirits. "I was making dolls, I had this idea for creatures that looks a lot like the high spirits but weren't them." She knelt down and picked on up. "See I made this one that kind of looks like you without the wings!"

The woman looked down at the doll and shook her head. "How could you make an Aurora without her wings?"

Discord took the doll back. "Well she's not exactly an Aurora Mother, she's." Discord looked at the doll. "Something else. Something special."

Aurora nodded. "I see, is she the only one?"

Discord shook her head. "No! I made others but…"she looked down at the figures. "I only really like this one." Discord picked up another doll. "This one I kind of made too look like Daddy but not."

Aurora looked at the new doll. "I see and this doll, is he the other one's lover?"

Discord wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "NO! This is her brother! Her true brother, not like all the rest."

Aurora looked confused. "All the rest?"

Discord sighed. "Yeah, I have this idea of making many of these dolls to play with, maybe even using my power to have them walk around and talk to each other. You know, not forever but for a little bit." She looked up at her mother's disapproving face. "I wouldn't be making spirits! I just little creatures with a tiny little spark." She made symbol with her hand. "I promise I won't make new spirits of things Daddy would have to care for."

Aurora looked at the little dolls then back at her daughter and her eyes softened. "Here, give me the dolls and I shall give them a bit of my spark."

Discord gave her the two dolls. "I want the boy to have blue eyes and tanned skin like this mud."

"And the girl?" Aurora asked.

"Gold! Just like me but give her white skin like my hair."

Aurora looked puzzled. "Why would you want that?"

"Because I like that color I think I would look good as her skin."

"But yours is so pretty." Aurora argued.

Discord rolled her eyes. "Well if you like it so much make her hair that color."

Aurora nodded and with a wave of her hand the small creatures had color and were moving around. She handed them back to Discord. "Now you take care of these two, I will not make you any more."

Discord nodded and ran back to the manor with her new toys. She dressed the boy in blue and made a yellow dress for the girl. "Ok, so you two are brother and sister meaning you can fight each other but you'll always have the other's back. Got it?"

The two figures just looked up at her and blinked.

Discord sighed and sat back. "Should have known mud brains would be all that bright."

The girl doll put her hands on her tiny hips. "Hey! That's not nice! We were just made a few, a few, well we haven't been around that long we're trying to get our footing."

"Yeah!" Chimed in the boy. "Footing! We don't even have names!"

Discord blinked. "Names? What's a name? You're a doll, you should be named doll."

"But there's two of us." The boy pointed out. "If you call us both doll then how will we know which one you're talking to?"

Discord was quiet for a moment. "I guess that's true." She looked around her room. "What to call you? What to call you….Oh I know!"

.o.

"Adam and Eve?" Sokka looked over at Discord who glared back.

"No, I named them Night and Day. Am I boring you?"

Sokka cringed. "A little. What happened next?"

Discord sighed. "Well my father found them and destroyed them. He called them abominations and I, in my rage, tore the world in four locking all those high and mighty old gods beyond even the land of the dead." She smiled. "True some did escape and from them the old guard, the new guard and all the lesser spirits stemmed but for the most part they were all locked away and I could the other three planes with and iron fist." She clenched her fist and it became solid metal.

Sokka blinked. "So what happened next?"

Discord chuckled. "I made more dolls, like you and populated the world with them so I could play." She smiled and I did until my own children turned against me." Her face darkened. "They stripped me of my great power and hid me under ground in the spirit world never to awaken again." A smile returned to her lips. "But nothing lasts forever not even gods."

Sokka nodded. "I guess so…so what are you going to do to me? You brought me back to life are you going to kill me now?"

Discord floated back and gazed him. Her pensive eyes started to make Sokka nervous. "No, that's too straight forward for me. I'll leave you alive in fact you will never die by another's hand, even age." She smirked. "The only way to die and be at rest is to give your life to another who has died."

Sokka paused. "What? That makes no sense!"

Discord started to walk away. "You'll be alive until you trade your life for their death."

Sokka frowned. "Well that makes even less sense!"

Discord chuckled and started to fade into nothing. "It will in time sweet knight."