The past relationship of Lin and Tenzin is something I find so intriguing. Here's my attempt to shed light on their old relations: the childhood, falling in love, and eventually falling out of it. This will be a series of one-shots chronicling that love.
The cover art was done by Minuiko on deviantart!
Please read and review!
"Tenzin, this is Lin- Aunt Toph's daughter. Remember her?" Aang nudged his toddling son toward the little girl in Toph's lap. Tenzin frowned and clutched onto his father's Air Nomad robes, shy as always. Aang chuckled and gently eased the fabric out of his son's chubby hands. "Go on and say hi, buddy. You're just about the same age." Lin hopped out of her mother's grasp and waddled over to Tenzin, who once again hid behind his father's figure. Removing her thumb from her mouth, Lin grabbed ahold of Tenzin's hand and coaxed him out from behind the Avatar.
"I'm bored." The little earthbender declared. "Play with me." Tenzin looked up at Aang, who gave his three-year-old son a smile and a nod of encouragement. Unknown to the two children, this wasn't their first encounter- they had met multiple times since their infancy. It was only now that they were old enough to actually form coherent sentences and recognize familiar faces. Tenzin shyly led Lin to his bedroom to show off his favorite toys. The two kids plopped themselves onto the sealskin rug and soon grew restless again after a short time of playing with Tenzin's playthings.
"I'm bored again, Tenzin." Lin announced, tossing the plush sabertooth moose-lion to the side of the bedroom. Tenzin scrambled to pick up his favorite stuffed animal, a gift from Uncle Sokka, appalled that his new playmate would toss his FooFooCuddlyPoops so carelessly.
"Lin, that was not nice."
Lin shrugged. "I'm hungry, and I don't want to play with the stuffed animals anymore."
Tenzin wandered over to his window and beckoned for his friend to follow.
"Do you like moon peaches? My mommy has a moon peach tree." He pointed to a tall tree dotted with ivory colored fruit in his mother's prized garden. The little girl's emerald eyes widened at the mention of her favorite snack.
"Moon peaches? That's the bestestest food in the world!" She clapped her hands together in excitement. Tenzin placed a finger to his lips. "Shh. Mommy doesn't like us eating them before dinner. We need to be sneaky." Lin grinned at her new friend.
"You have spunk, kid." She announced, while holding onto Tenzin's hand as he clumsily created a gentle gust of air that blew the duo outside and into the garden through the window. Lin looked at Tenzin, awestruck. "That was a neat trick!"
Tenzin smiled humbly. "All I do is wave my hand and say 'blow' and then wind comes!" he explained, not knowing really what it meant to airbend. Hand in hand, the playmates walked over to the moon peach tree. They craned their necks back, noticing that the moon peaches were a lot higher up off the ground than they had anticipated.
Tenzin frowned. "How are we supposed to reach the moon peaches now?" Lin cocked her head to the side and went up and threw her little arms around the trunk of the tree.
"Maybe if we shake the tree, the moon peaches will fall down!" She suggested, hopping up and down while hanging onto the tree, trying rather fruitlessly, to shake the delectable fruits from the branches.
While the shaking of the branch did nothing to budge the tree trunk, the hopping, Tenzin noticed, made the ground vibrate enough to make the stems of the fruits wobble slightly. At this revelation, the young airbender grew excited. "Keep jumping, Lin!" He waved his arms around, repeatedly shouting "blow!" and in effect, creating tiny breezes which shook the fruits even further. To their delight, the moon peaches on the lowest branches began toppling to the ground.
"Aang, do you have any idea where Tenzin and Lin are?" Katara asked her husband, who was in the middle of giving his eldest son a lecture.
"They're just in his room, aren't they?" Aang answered his wife before turning back to his son. "What did we learn today?" Bumi sulked in his seat, annoyed.
"That I shouldn't tie Kya's hair to heavy objects when she's not looking." Aang rolled his eyes.
"I hope you've learned your lesson. Go apologize to your sister." He sent Bumi out of the room and faced to his wife again.
"Aang, that's just it- they're not in Tenzin's room." Katara looked at her husband, lines of worry etched across her forehead. Aang rose from his chair, now equally as concerned.
"They couldn't have wandered far. Did you check outside?"
When the young parents did make it outdoors to the garden, they found Tenzin and Lin lying on the grass beneath the moon peach tree. Katara quickly scanned the area. There were moon peach pits scattered all over the garden while the bottom half of the fruit tree was completely barren. The kids' swollen stomachs and sticky faces told the rest of the story.
Tenzin yawned sleepily in his father's arms. "Dada, I made wind happen and Lin made the ground shake." Lin was already fast asleep in Katara's arms, worn out from the whole adventure.
"Something tells me they figured out how to manipulate bending to get what they want." Katara remarked, upset that her baby boy procured his favorite snack and spoiled his dinner but also relieved and overjoyed to find both children after being worried for all of twenty minutes. After a necessary cleaning up of both the garden and the toddlers, the couple put the exhausted children to sleep.
A few hours later, Toph returned to pick up her daughter from her playdate. Lin, now awake, wandered over to her mother. Toph rested Lin against her hip and spoke to her.
"Uncle Twinkletoes tells me you and Tenzin had quite the adventure today." Lin nodded, beaming at Tenzin. After slightly cringing at his old nickname, Aang noted that Tenzin was not quite as shy around Lin as he had been in the morning.
"I like you Lin." Tenzin proclaimed.
"You're okay for a boy." Lin acknowledged with a yawn, resting her head against her mother's shoulder and falling back asleep.