Okay, so I love Lin and Tenzin, and it's them meeting up every two years throughout their childhood. I know they grew up together, but I like the idea of them seeing each other every other summer, like the kids in The Swan Princess...Review please!
The first day they met there was an awkward silence. She glanced up at him through her thick dark lashes. He watched her cautiously. She was three, he was five. Then he stuck out his hand formally. She giggled, shoved her hand into his, for a brief moment, and then turns to her mother.
"Mom, I wanna see Aang!"
"Say a proper hello to Tenzin"
"He's a dweeb!"
"Alright then, we'll see Aang". Toph picked up her squirming daughter, walking towards the house. She mouthed a "Sorry" to Tenzin before depositing her child in the arms of her dear friend.
"Tenzin having trouble making friends?"
"What can I say? He's a dweeb, twinkle-toes."
"Ah, well. They'll grow out of it."
Two summers later, she's five and he's seven. He's telling her she could earth-bend if she'd only try, when it happens. She pushes a rock up, tripping him. She laughs out loud then, exhilarated by her accomplishment. Tenzin picks himself up, dusts himself off, and is promptly buried under his exuberant charge, as she flings herself around him. For the first time, the queer, formal airbender laughs.
And the little girl for the first time, laughs with him.
Another two summers pass. He's nine now, almost a grown up. She's seven, still rejects his authority, still loves spending time with his father. He wonders what it is, this magical secret his father possesses. Once he asked him. Aang shakes his head. There's no reason. They just click. They both love to laugh. Maybe that's it. Tenzin practices this, this strange laughter.
He isn't used to it, he's only laughed around her.
Two more summers. She's nine now, on the verge of adulthood. He pompously informs her that she's not really, that they say that, but you're not really mature until eleven. She rolls her eyes, and tells him to go away, that he's just a dweeb, and to shut up. He laughs, pats her on the head, and walks away. She glares after him.
She hates being a child.
Thirteen. It sounds rich and full. She can't wait to ask him about his life, how it's different. Being thirteen. She stops short. He's holding hands with some girl from the village. She's older than Lin, thirteen like him. Rich and full. She leans down when Lin comes nearby.
"Oh, Tenzin, you're babysitting? How sweet! What's your name, honey?"
"Kiss my ass" snaps Lin, and runs off. She doesn't talk to Tenzin. He and that girl, that condescending girl, walk around holding hands. Once she sees them kiss. Whatever.
She doesn't care.
She's thirteen, and she feels rich and full. She's become a woman now, and she can't wait to flaunt it in that girl's face.
The girl's gone. She doesn't ask Tenzin, and it becomes an unspoken secret. She never mentions it again. Neither does Tenzin. They go back to laughing. She realizes he's become a man without her even noticing. The tattoos appeared while she was gone, and a fine line of stubble. She feels ever so slightly nervous around him. He asks her to go swimming, she shakes her head.
He wonders why the rejection stings.
Seventeen. He could leave. He waits for her . She comes, on schedule, but she doesn't say hello. She runs past him into his father. The soft airbending robes swallow her from his view. He sighs and walks out. He wants it to be him she tells. She cries that summer. It scares him. He wants to protect her from the bastard who did this to her.
But he can't. Because she's Lin and he's Tenzin, and that would be stepping across a line they aren't even aware is there.
He's scared of the line.
Now she's seventeen, and she really is a woman. He isn't sure when she blossomed into this beautiful stranger, but suddenly he's nervous around her, wants to make the right impression. He picks her flowers, she laughs, kisses his cheek.
"Thanks" she beams, puts them in a vase. She doesn't realize what they mean. Some village boy is with her, laughing at her jokes, running his hand through her thick, dark hair. She lights up around him, and Tenzin grudgingly respects that he makes her happy.
But not like he could.
Twenty-one and nineteen. Too old for childish games they think. But they skirt around the issue all summer. And then, on the last day, the sun is setting. They're leaning against a tree, laughing. He's aware of her fingers, fluttering in the air, thin and elegant, like her. She leans against him, sturdy as ever, her rock. He presses a kiss into her hair, but she acts as if this was normal. He kisses her forehead, and now she turns and looks at him. Her lips are thin and pink and inviting, so he presses his own on them.
And she kisses him back.