week #67 -- hunger
Title: The Need to be Seen
Rating: K
Characters: Tenzin, OC
Word Count: 298
Summary: Will acolytes always be content to remain so?
"Master, if you have further thoughts on the Convocation of Temples we only await your word."
Tenzin sighed. "It pains me to repeat this conversation, Chogyal."
"Please do not think I am unhappy in my position, nor any of the others." The Head Acolyte's eyes were bright and green in the low light of the office. "But you know better than I do, with only one monk present the Convocation will be incomplete."
Did Tenzin really know better? He often suspected Chogyal knew the sacred texts better than he did. If not for an accident of birth...
"There will be more monks and nuns." The words came out more harshly than intended, as though to drown the thought. "You know this."
"Yes, and my heart rejoices." Chogyal bowed his head.
Does it? The thought was a pinprick, tiny but real. A mere reverberation from recent events, he told himself.
"But you do not think it is enough." You don't think my children are enough.
"We do not know how large a bowl we must fill. Who is to say it is not an ocean?"
Don't lecture me. Well-read or no, Chogyal was an acolyte. Monks and nuns had always been airbenders, their entire Nation had been airbenders-
What becomes of wind that is trapped in a tomb?
The words from the Sayings of Avatar Yang Chen echoed with the voice of rebuke. Tenzin's chest sank like a deflated sail.
"I need to think about this," he heard himself say. "We will talk again, Chogyal."
"Master." Chogyal bowed and left the office.
Left alone, Tenzin looked out at the city across the bay and the lights sparking into existence in the sky and on the ground, two constellations facing each other across the expanse where the winds flowed.