Fanfiction: Ursa Departs (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

[nebroadwe]

Title: Sonnet: Ursa Departs
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character(s): Ursa
Pairing(s): None.
Rating: G
Word Count: 107
Warnings: None.
A/N: I was mugged by a sonnet on Friday and spent the weekend recovering from the shock and then pummeling the mugger into (barely) postable shape. Sonnets are hard -- and I'm not sure why I keep diving into seventeenth-century poetry and poetic forms when I write Avatar 'fic -- cf. here and here -- but perhaps it has something to do with being an English major. Concrit welcomed with pretty rooms (and bonus gold to aery thinness beat to anyone who spots the reference :-). Crossposted from nebroadwe to avatar_fans and avatarfic.
Dedication(s): For William Shakespeare, il miglior fabbro.

---

She's never gone but where her going's known
Nor come but where her welcome is assured --
Hawk-heralded, by rumor's wings outflown;
What's needful to her comfort long procured
Or whistled up in haste; her way prepared
By liv'ried outriders, as fits her state;
Her hosts all deference, no effort spared
To earn her gentle protest of surfeit --
Till now, when with laborious steps and sore,
She gains the ridge's broken summit, spent --
Behind, the royal court, her home no more;
Ahead, the desert of her banishment --
Like an explorer at the utmost North,
For whom all ways are one, and that one, forth.

---

[Acknowledgments: Avatar: The Last Airbender was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko; copyright for this property is held by Viacom International, Inc. All rights reserved.]

Comments

[pinkelephant42.livejournal.com]

This is lovely, so much emotion, and you portray Ursa as such a strong woman. :D

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm ... the in-text reference is to John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning" and that of the dedication to Eliot, right? :)

That said, bravo! Wonderful, as usual.

[aerodactylus.livejournal.com]

Whoa...I am impressed. Speaking as someone who can't write poetry (much less sonnets,) worth a damn, it's really cool to see such a well crafted bit of wordsmithing.

Ol' Willy Shakes would be proud.

[sannask.livejournal.com]

niiiiiiiice.

I can't reconcile
"By liv'ried outriders, as fits her state;"
with the iamb... i'm getting emphasis on the 'ers' of 'outriders'. perhaps
'By liv'ried riders, as befits her state;'?

but man. /man/. that's awesome. and it makes me want to know what happened to her at the end!!

[findmyantidrug.livejournal.com]

Woah, man, this...wow. I mean, wow. This whole thing is positively brilliant, but the last two lines are my very favorite. Marvelous.

[r-kimono.livejournal.com]

Wow. I read this as the prelude to a fic (you know how some authors put relevant poems at the beginning?), and I couldn't believe it when I realized the poem *was* the fic. I mean that as a compliment - the poem seemed very true to the Shakespearian mold, especially in the language and 'pace' of the line. I especially liked the 'turn', both literal (Ursa looking back at her former home) and poetic. Very lovely. <3

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I don't know the first thing about attempting to write a sonnet, so I can't comment technically, but major points for making it pretty, making it flow well, and, you know, for even attempting it, because it's something different and interesting. I approve!