Fic: Shattered
Title: Shattered
Author: aranel_took
Characters: Soranik Natu
Prompt: Written for femgenficathon. Prompt #127 - Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition. -- Florida Scott-Maxwell.
Rating: G
Words: 1,000
Summary: Soranik Natu's life fell apart when she was chosen as a Green Lantern, but that's not always a bad thing. Thanks to juno_magic for looking this over for me!
When the ring came to her, Soranik Natu had been afraid. She had feared and hated the Green Lanterns for as long as she could remember, raised on stories of Sinestro the Wicked and Katma Tui the Lost. They had turned their backs on Korugar, she had been told, corrupted by the power of the Green Lantern. As a child Soranik had listened with a mix of horror and fascination of how Sinestro had oppressed their people, a single man able to crush their wills only with the fear of his power. Katma Tui had simply abandoned them, people said with a mix of sadness and disdain in their eyes, turning her back on Korugar to ally with aliens. As a student, Soranik had participated in debates over which had been worse, which had been the greater betrayal of Korugar. And she had vowed with youthful idealism not to be anything like either of them. What would you do if a ring came to you? the students would speculate, and Soranik was adamant she would refuse it, though she was confident she would never be chosen in the first place. She wasn’t like Sinestro or Katma Tui. She could help her people with her mind and her own two hands, not with an alien ring! So when the ring had come to her surgery and chose her as a Green Lantern, when it had been so easy to just reach out and take, to use it to save the life of her patient, she had felt the first piece of her life chip away. What had she done to deserve this? How could she be like them?
She had tried to refuse it, but she had to admit her pride got the best of her when Rayner and Gardner suggested she wasn’t fit to be a Lantern anyway. They had played her, she realized later, purposely presenting her with a challenge to overcome. Somehow they knew that she could not resist a challenge - it was why she had become a surgeon. So she had accepted the ring and another crack appeared in her life. She learned that the Green Lanterns were not what she had been raised to believe. They were not symbols of oppression or power, but of justice and compassion. So she had tried to prove to her people she would be different, that she could use the ring for good. But the scars left by Sinestro were too deep and they had turned against her. Though she had saved a life with her new power, her people banned her from practicing medicine on Korugar and threw her out of her home. In that moment, everything she had worked for had shattered into a billion pieces. There was no going back now, no going back to simply being Soranik Natu, Surgeon. Would she be known as ‘the Lost’ as well?
Or would she become ‘the Wicked’ and fulfill her greatest fear and become like Sinestro? It was like a nightmare from her childhood come to life when he had appeared before her on Korugar before the war. And rather than treat her as an equal adversary, he had treated her as a child. Sinestro had told her she was afraid of becoming like him, that she feared the power she held. Of course she was afraid! How could she not be? A surgeon has to have arrogance. Without unwavering confidence in your abilities, how do you make that incision? How do you open a living body and hold a life in your hands? Soranik readily admitted she was arrogant. But so was he. And when the ring was on her finger, when she held in her hand the most powerful weapon in the universe, she couldn’t help but wonder how many steps it would take to go from arrogant surgeon to arrogant Green Lantern. No matter how much good she did as part of the Green Lantern Corps, she still wondered how many decisions ‘for the good of the people’ it would take before she became like Sinestro.
But did she have to fear that path? She was surrounded by arrogance: Iolande and her regal stubborness, Vath and Isamot and their soldierly boasting, and Gardner … if she didn’t know Rayner, she would have believed that humans were arrogance personified with only Guy Gardner as an example. But none of them had been corrupted by their rings. None of them had terrorized their planets into subservience. Through them she learned she had nothing to fear, that it was not the ring that creates the lust for power. That choice lies with the bearer. Sinestro let his arrogance overcome him, control him, make him believe that Korugar could not survive without him. And in his arrogance, he had believed that Soranik would be like him, that she would play into his plans and stay on Korugar. But Soranik had her own choice to make. Sinestro was right, that she had a strong desire to help her people, and what surgeon would not want to be called ‘savior’? But a good surgeon knows when to move on, to triage the patients and help those who need it most. And while Korugar had its problems, she had a faith that Sinestro never had - that it would survive without her constant care, in the capable hands of its people. Just as a surgeon is not abandoning the walking wounded by treating the critically injured first, she was not abandoning Korugar by helping other worlds that needed her more.
When the ring came to her, she had thought her life was over, shattered. But it was only the shell of her life that had been shattered, a shell formed by the ignorance and fear that was Sinestro’s legacy on Korugar. And though her old life was gone, something new was growing in its place, freed from her fear and able to flourish. She had a new life ahead of her: Soranik Natu, Green Lantern.
Author: aranel_took
Characters: Soranik Natu
Prompt: Written for femgenficathon. Prompt #127 - Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition. -- Florida Scott-Maxwell.
Rating: G
Words: 1,000
Summary: Soranik Natu's life fell apart when she was chosen as a Green Lantern, but that's not always a bad thing. Thanks to juno_magic for looking this over for me!
When the ring came to her, Soranik Natu had been afraid. She had feared and hated the Green Lanterns for as long as she could remember, raised on stories of Sinestro the Wicked and Katma Tui the Lost. They had turned their backs on Korugar, she had been told, corrupted by the power of the Green Lantern. As a child Soranik had listened with a mix of horror and fascination of how Sinestro had oppressed their people, a single man able to crush their wills only with the fear of his power. Katma Tui had simply abandoned them, people said with a mix of sadness and disdain in their eyes, turning her back on Korugar to ally with aliens. As a student, Soranik had participated in debates over which had been worse, which had been the greater betrayal of Korugar. And she had vowed with youthful idealism not to be anything like either of them. What would you do if a ring came to you? the students would speculate, and Soranik was adamant she would refuse it, though she was confident she would never be chosen in the first place. She wasn’t like Sinestro or Katma Tui. She could help her people with her mind and her own two hands, not with an alien ring! So when the ring had come to her surgery and chose her as a Green Lantern, when it had been so easy to just reach out and take, to use it to save the life of her patient, she had felt the first piece of her life chip away. What had she done to deserve this? How could she be like them?
She had tried to refuse it, but she had to admit her pride got the best of her when Rayner and Gardner suggested she wasn’t fit to be a Lantern anyway. They had played her, she realized later, purposely presenting her with a challenge to overcome. Somehow they knew that she could not resist a challenge - it was why she had become a surgeon. So she had accepted the ring and another crack appeared in her life. She learned that the Green Lanterns were not what she had been raised to believe. They were not symbols of oppression or power, but of justice and compassion. So she had tried to prove to her people she would be different, that she could use the ring for good. But the scars left by Sinestro were too deep and they had turned against her. Though she had saved a life with her new power, her people banned her from practicing medicine on Korugar and threw her out of her home. In that moment, everything she had worked for had shattered into a billion pieces. There was no going back now, no going back to simply being Soranik Natu, Surgeon. Would she be known as ‘the Lost’ as well?
Or would she become ‘the Wicked’ and fulfill her greatest fear and become like Sinestro? It was like a nightmare from her childhood come to life when he had appeared before her on Korugar before the war. And rather than treat her as an equal adversary, he had treated her as a child. Sinestro had told her she was afraid of becoming like him, that she feared the power she held. Of course she was afraid! How could she not be? A surgeon has to have arrogance. Without unwavering confidence in your abilities, how do you make that incision? How do you open a living body and hold a life in your hands? Soranik readily admitted she was arrogant. But so was he. And when the ring was on her finger, when she held in her hand the most powerful weapon in the universe, she couldn’t help but wonder how many steps it would take to go from arrogant surgeon to arrogant Green Lantern. No matter how much good she did as part of the Green Lantern Corps, she still wondered how many decisions ‘for the good of the people’ it would take before she became like Sinestro.
But did she have to fear that path? She was surrounded by arrogance: Iolande and her regal stubborness, Vath and Isamot and their soldierly boasting, and Gardner … if she didn’t know Rayner, she would have believed that humans were arrogance personified with only Guy Gardner as an example. But none of them had been corrupted by their rings. None of them had terrorized their planets into subservience. Through them she learned she had nothing to fear, that it was not the ring that creates the lust for power. That choice lies with the bearer. Sinestro let his arrogance overcome him, control him, make him believe that Korugar could not survive without him. And in his arrogance, he had believed that Soranik would be like him, that she would play into his plans and stay on Korugar. But Soranik had her own choice to make. Sinestro was right, that she had a strong desire to help her people, and what surgeon would not want to be called ‘savior’? But a good surgeon knows when to move on, to triage the patients and help those who need it most. And while Korugar had its problems, she had a faith that Sinestro never had - that it would survive without her constant care, in the capable hands of its people. Just as a surgeon is not abandoning the walking wounded by treating the critically injured first, she was not abandoning Korugar by helping other worlds that needed her more.
When the ring came to her, she had thought her life was over, shattered. But it was only the shell of her life that had been shattered, a shell formed by the ignorance and fear that was Sinestro’s legacy on Korugar. And though her old life was gone, something new was growing in its place, freed from her fear and able to flourish. She had a new life ahead of her: Soranik Natu, Green Lantern.