Hey guys! Updated, and fixed this one up a bit! Hopefully it's better now! :)
"Sacrificing your happiness for the happiness of the ones you love, is by far, the truest type of love."- Henry David Thoreau
Bolin had loved her.
But he will move on for them...
Because someone, someone he had loved very much, had told him that sacrifice is the greatest form of love. Someone with strong, smooth hands that had worked and cooked and hoisted him up, high on broad shoulders, and ran around the yard so he would feel he was flying, with the same hands that had tucked him in at night. Someone with vibrant green eyes- not amber like his fading memories had caused him to start to painstakingly believe- but green eyes that seemingly look like his own, twinkled like sugar when he laughed loud and amiable, and fuzzy hairs on his chin that tickled his cheeks when he would get kissed-that Someone had told him that the greatest love you can give another, is to sacrifice your own happiness for their's, so that they are happy, even if it hurts you. That wise person had told his little self -that Someone, shining with love so bright that he had felt as if his hero were the Sun Spirit shineing upon him- had said that that kind of sacrifice, shows just how much you are willing to give up for the people you love, and that that kind of sacrificial love, is the greatest honor your soul can hold.
"It is? But why...?" his little self had asked with innocence, his "R"s coming out like "W"s, "Why can't evewybody just wove evewybody fowever, instead of making the other person sad?"
"You'll understand some day, my little one." that Someone had smiled and rubbed his big nose against his small, pink, one, "You must promise me to always love with all your heart."
"As much as...as much as me and Mako and Mommy wove you?" his round cheeks had puffed out, head cocked to the side with a question, green eyes beaming with youth.
That Someone's soft chuckles had made him guess he had asked the right question, and he was rewarded with warm hands ruffling his curls, "Yes, sweetie, and even more."
"I pwooooommmmise.",and a yawn had escaped his mouth, signaling to that Someone that it was time for dreaming.
Soft lips wet his white nose, and he was shifted from that Somone's embrace; tree-trunk arms unfolding thier cocoon on his slightly pudgy form, and lifted him until his head met cloud-soft pillow and blankets were snuggled around him.
"Good night, my little turtle-duck."
"Night-night, Daddy..."
He had loved her...but that didn't mean the love was returned.
That Someone's secret words rang true in his ears as he watched Mako carry her off Naga with a protective force; her face, so tired and beaten, and Mako's face, eyes swimming in only her ocean-blues, gazes locked on the other's, expression saying only one thing: Love
And he knew he would never share that look- not with her anyway.
His attempts were futile and one-sided. He was a rock, a rock in the middle of the stream, stopping any flow of water from escaping beyond its sturdy force, and the longer he stay there, unyielding,the more pressure and resistant built up on the waves: nonfunctional opposites. And when he rolled away from the force and removed himself from the movement of the water- everything worked again, the stream gliding and weaving strong without him holding it back.
That's what he was doing- holding them back.
He had to step aside, clearly unwanted, let nature and fate play itself out; earth only turning to useless, ugly mud when met with water.
He had tried to be like Mako, and that hadn't worked.
He had tried to be like anyone but himself, thinking he had to change. Nothing had worked. He was always invisible to everything and everyone, blending into the background. Overtaken by a shadow.
Because everybody loved the raging, passionate, heartbeat of fire. Not the sloppy, brown, nothingness of muddy rock.
He had tried to show her-oh, he had tried to share that face with her.
Even when his brother was with someone else and was denying everyone- even her, even himself- that he did not find fondness for her.
Bolin could see through his brother's denial, to the truth. Maybe that's why he started to back off, because above anything else, he knew his brother deserved her, and he just never possibly could. It was a miracle she had even talked to him at first.
Yet, still, he hoped that she would grace him with that Look.
Why had no one told him that hope was for fools? For that was what he felt now.
Yet, still, he dared to hope.
Even when Mako and Korra had shared a kiss in the moonlight had their denied the bond that he could clearly see, no matter how much he wished he couldn't. But he and Yue could tell, for they had seen the Look they had shared even if the Avatar and the Firebender had not noticed it upon themselves-they, not loving themselves enough to know what love for them from another would look like.
And he doesn't know what saddens him more. That it took them- Mako and Korra- all this time to realize their feeling for one another, or that he actually thought he had stood a chance when he was silently, helplessly, painfully, watching the stream flow right past him, already knowing full well of it's coarse.
He had loved her.
For the first time in his life, he had felt the beautiful, joyful, unconditional, bliss that was Love for this girl.
Yet, she always looked past him, only with a smile for him that meant "friend", her eyes always grazing upon the amber of his brother's, she always saying the Firebender's name as if he were a Spirit sent to her.
He knew she was simply amazing and special the moment he saw her; all flustered and anxious, just trying to work her way to see a match, yet victim to the looming watcher that was Toza; inevitable fate.
Yet, a fate not meant for him.
He had known of her light before he knew she was the mighty Avatar, before he even knew her name that ran so smoothly off the tip of his tongue like the honey in his favorite tea, or heard her voice that he wished would say his name in his dreams.
But...he will move on for them.
Because they are so happy together, and as Mako walks away, she cradled in his arms, he understands now; finnaly understands what that Someone had meant all that time ago.
He feels it. He knows. He understands.
Yet, it doesn't mean it doesn't ach.
And he will keep his promise, because he loves them both more than his whole heart can fill.
Which is why, weeks later, after Amon and the war is over, after Korra has lost, regained, and restored bending, when he is feeling miserable- a lonely kind of miserable that he knows eventually will go away- when Mako and Korra, hand in hand, gleefully announce that they are indeed a couple, he can only, sincerely, be happy for them with all that he is.
Because that is the greatest kind of love he can give, and he rather give that than anything else.
And, as he sits in the snow and watches them, his fingers stroking Pabu's fur; the love-birds throughing snowballs at each other, thier laughter dancing in the frozen air, he looks to the puffy- clouded sky and says to that Someone, "I understand now, Poppa. It's better to have loved and lost than to never loved at all. It really is."
And he closes he eyes, a small smile pulling at his red cheeks, and lets the snowflakes fall on his nose, just like the wet kisses of that Someone, knowing he would smile back, from wherever he and the other Someone are watching.