A/N: Another brooding Mako/introspection drabble. Reviews are greatly appreciated! Enjoy.
The Hand that Fate Dealt
To him, fate was a fickle thing. At times, he felt as if he got the low end of the stick, the trump card. Yet at other times, he felt that he was fortunate beyond belief. And it puzzled him. How could fate, the force that strings events and people together or apart, be both cruel and merciful? Sure, he knew that life was full of ups and downs, but fate had dealt him quite a hand. Misfortune had plagued his early years. Fate had extinguished his parent's lives with the flames of a firebender, an event that was completely randomized, containing the possibility that it could have happened to anyone else. In this act, fate was cruel to use the same element he bended to end his parents lives, and it was cruel to take away his childhood, since he witnessed the event and was only eight years old. Fate then proceeded to turn him and his younger brother out on the streets that they would call home for many years. By this time, he only thought of fate as a cruel and empty being, not caring one way or the other. So he began to harden his heart, for whom could he trust with his life but himself, now that fate had made such a mess of things? As a child on the streets, he would often watch families that walked by, with well and whole mothers and fathers, with a burning reproach and jealousy. Yet he had to give fate credit. He had Bolin. His younger brother provided all the joy that was left in his life, and provided the incentive to keep on living. He was glad that fate had not chosen to take Bolin, too. Many years passed, and things started to look up. Fate caused him to meet Toza, who saw the promise in him and Bolin, and allowed them to rent the apartment above the Pro-Bending Arena, as long as they played the sport, of course. They took the Pro-Bending scene by storm, bending the elements that fate had given to them as gifts, almost like a consolation prize for the havoc it knew it would cause in their lives. Soon steady money was coming in. They had clean clothes on their backs and food to eat. Maybe all his previous suffering was worth it, in a way, as long as his standard of living increased and he kept his brother off the streets. But then, fate gave him the biggest surprise of all. She was thrown into his life, almost unceremoniously. Not only was she a pretty, seventeen year old girl who irked him and got under his skin, she was the Avatar, no less. Upon meeting her, his view of fate changed. Before she came, he knew that things in his life would either be good or bad, harmful or beneficial, black or white. Yet when fate chose to pluck her out of the sky and land her firmly in his world, he was suddenly faced with a cross roads. All of a sudden, he was free to choose any path he wanted; free to live any life he wanted. Admittedly, he chose wrongly at first, choosing the paths that were straight and narrow, easy, versus the winding and rocky, the ones he had to work for. Ultimately, the path he chose lead straight to her. And he would forever be grateful to fate for it. His earlier sufferings, pains, and struggles; all the darkness that haunted his life as a victim of a cruel fate, compared nothing to this. To her. She brought light to his darkness and healing to his pain. But most of all, she brought understanding. Yes, fate was a fickle thing. But now, with her in his life, his younger brother alive and well, and with his Firebending intact, he couldn't help but feel fortunate and blessed beyond belief. What more could he need? With her at his side, he could now look past the cruelty of fate, and face head-on the hand it had dealt him.
End