Never Knew Forever Was So Short.
"Lin…" Tenzin said with a pleading voice. He never wanted it to end this way. He slowly made his way towards her, hoping to sooth it over.
"Please! Just get out…" She forced it through; she never thought her heart could have shattered in so little time.
Her back faced him as she gripped onto her metal desk, ultimately bending it in her grasp. She could never bare the thought of letting the people who hurt her get to see her cry, she would never be weak, she would always the unmovable rock everyone thought she was.
"Please…if you have any respect for me after what you told me…what you did to me…Get out!" She cried out to him, thought it sounded like a wounded warrior's cry.
"Lin…You have to understand that I-"
"I will not repeat myself…I don't care what more you have to say! Just stop, I have no more to say to you!" She would be the warrior everyone expected, she would be the cold person that showed no emotion.
"I'm truly sorry for this…" As soon as he left the tears he would never see came ten fold. The pain he could never imagine seized Lin so tight that she fell to her knees in despair. She was not an unmovable rock, she was a woman who lost her love to a person who was sixteen years younger, and to a person who could provide him a family.
But she would never let anyone see her like this; she was going to stay strong if not for herself than for her mother. A person who everyone thought weak, she would prove that she was not any less than her steady fast mother.
An uproar was heard outside her office.
"Chief Bei Fong! The Triple Threat Triad is at it again!" This was her calling, protecting people who needed the protection. Upholding her mother's legacy, and being that unmovable rock.
Lin gathered up her armor and pushed away the emotion flooding her. The city needed her and she would not let her mother death be in vain. She would not let gangster, the same type of people who killed her mother, roam the streets free.
She strode out of the station with a stride that showed power but also with an emotional war bearing its ugly head inside of her.
A young Lin was crying alone under a willow tree. She just lost her rock, Toph Bei Fong. Her mother may not have been perfect but she was perfect in Lin's eyes. She held up her head only to come face to face with her mother's tomb stone.
"The World's Greatest Earthbender." It read.
"Mommy…I miss you." Cried out the young girl.
Her mother would always be her hero. Toph Bei Fong, was a blind girl who the world never knew about until she disobeyed her parents and helped the Avatar and his friends to end the Hundred Year War. Toph was the girl who never had a real friend until she was twelve. Who despite everyone seeing her blindness as a weakness invented metalbending. She made the impossible happen and she passed on everything she learnt onto her most precious treasure, her daughter.
"Why did you have to leave me mommy? Didn't you love me?" The fragile child wept.
"Lin…You know your mother loved you more than anything."
"Yes…But Tenzin, how could she leave me?"
"She didn't…"
"Tenzin…Don't tell me mommy left to be in the spirit world! She told me would always be with me…That she would never leave me. Why would she break her promise? Did I do something bad?"
"Lin. Of course not! She didn't mean to leave… she was taken from us…" Tenzin knew that if he tried to sugar coat the story, it would only prove to be more painful for the young girl who had lost her only family left. After all she had been raised by Toph, the bluntest person he had ever known.
"At least you didn't lie to me…" The little girl said, feigning a smile.
Almost everyone lied to the little girl; they seemed to forget her mother also taught her seismic sense. Having someone tell her the truth seemed to help her a little bit.
"I'll become the world's greatest chief and avenge mommy." The determine girl said.
"And I'll always be by your side Lin." The older boy said.
"You're lying…eventually you'll leave me too." The little girl seemed downcast again.
"No. Never. I'll be by your side forever."
"I love you Tenzin!" The girl shouted happily and jumped onto the boy.
"Okay! Okay… I get it!" The boy laughed.
"Chief! Look out!"
Lin looked to where the office had shouted and saw two water whips coming at her, she tried to evade the attack but that only cause it to miss a vital points and strike at her face leaving two gashing blood marks.
"Agh!"
"Chief!"
"Never mind me! I'll live, apprehend the triad before it's too late!" She shouted as she release two metal whips and caught two of the guys.
When everything was said and done the healers began to tend towards the injured civilians and officers.
"You should really be more careful, Lin!"
Lin looked up and saw the eyes that reminded her so much of someone. The pain she held in for so long seemed to rage against her as if demanding they be released.
"Katara…I'm fine. This is a small wound."
"Let me heal you and I won't take no for an answer." Katara smiled fondly at the chief and began healing her.
"Lin…Your wound is not small…It will leave a scar in its place." As Katara said this, Lin reached up and touched the scars adorning her face.
"It will be there forever, Lin. I only wish that I could have healed you sooner maybe it would have been better."
"It's fine" Lin said as she walked away.
Because out of everything she realized today, it was that forever was so short.