Chapter Text
In the Spirit World, there stood a house on a white plain. Pale grasses stirred in the wind, and the sky above was deep black, frosted over with stars. It was very cold on this plain, for this was the country of the Moon.
The Moon’s house was built of paper and silver filigree, and pale driftwood. The Ocean helped in its construction.
The Moon and the Ocean are of a high order of Spirits indeed. They exist in multiple aspects at once: two men dancing in masks at a Water Tribe festival; an orca diving through polar seas, and a white bear padding over the ice; a vast rock reflecting the Sun, and the massive depths of salt-rich water. Two humans (or at least, they look like humans) visiting each other in their separate houses. And there are two fish in a pool, circling each other eternally, the anchors in the flow of Time for the Ocean and the Moon.
So it has been, for ages.
But Time has a funny way of changing things.
A moment of wrath and the Balance broke. The Moon went dark, and both worlds trembled.
And then—
Almost as quickly as it began, one small life was snuffed out, and the Sun’s light on that vast white rock became holy again.
Moonlight shimmered on a little pool and created a koi fish from nothing. A bear cub emerged from the bones of her mother.
And in the country of the Moon, a girl with white hair stepped gingerly into a house made of driftwood and paper and silver filigree.