Title: Planes, Race Cars, and Lightning
Chapter Title: A Singularly Determined Girl
Author: sangi (honestly_sangi)
Rating: PG
Words: 2974
Prompt: Asami Week, prompt 1: gravity
Char/Pair: Asami Sato, Hiroshi Sato
Summary: Asami's father caught her sneaking out of the house when she was nine.
Notes: Well, this ended up being longer than expected. This is for Asami Week, prompt 1: gravity. Also cross-posted to tumbr and AO3. I plan on adding the other works for Asami Week to this story eventually, including a short epilogue, but I make no promises on updates or anything.
"I'm a big girl. I can handle myself."
1.
Asami's father caught her sneaking out of the house when she was nine.
It wasn't the first time she slipped through the side door at one in the morning; that had happened on a rainy summer night almost a year ago. Humid and stifling, the weather had woken her long before dawn, the full moon still shining high in the sky. Asami just wanted to go outside and cool down, to dance in the light drizzle and let it wash the heat and nightmares away. She had laid on the damp grass, green and cut short, staring up at the dappled sky. After returning to her room she had realized how easy it was to leave, and began to steal away on a regular basis. At first it was just for fun, to explore the world outside her sheltered life, but with time it became her escape from the servants' whispers and her etiquette lessons.
True, she was always careful: she didn't want her dad to discover her dirty secret. His face always fell when she disappointed him, regret and doubt heavy in his eyes, and she hated that look. It made her feel ungrateful, like the child who went against his parents' wishes and got eaten by a spirit in her favorite bedtime story. Luckily, due to his lenient attitude and ignorance of her activities, she very rarely upset Hiroshi. If he did catch her, he seldom punished her; Asami was, after all, his only daughter. His only family.
The servants whispered that he spoiled her, letting her do whatever she liked. Asami wanted to say she wasn't like that, but when she did something wrong and consequently got away with it, she felt like she was just proving them right.
Still, she never felt too guilty for sneaking out because it was just so easy and seemed so harmless - a pair of black robes, a sneak through shadowed hallways, and a twist of the knob freed her to roam Republic City. The city was always buzzing with activity, but as long as she stayed to the shadows she was safe, hidden from the view of the populace. The timing of her escapes was all meticulously planned; she had perfected it after a few months. The servants retired around eleven and father always went to bed around midnight (after having a 'nightcap,' a little glass full of amber liquid, in his office). At about one she would leave her chambers, often pausing to listen to him snore when she tiptoed past his room, a smile spreading across her face at the sound. Stealing past the guards was simple; they weren't looking for a child leaving the home, but instead for intruders entering. They switched shifts at dawn, allowing her to re-enter the home unnoticed. No one had caught her thus far.
So when she opened the kitchen door, dressed all in black, Asami wasn't expecting anyone to interrupt her escape.
"Asami, what are you doing?" A familiar voice, weary and curious, came from behind her.
She paused halfway through the door, feeling dragon-fireflies fluttering in her tummy. "Dad?" She slowly turned around, the warm summer air ruffling her dark robes.
He sat at a small table near the oven, a cup nestled in his hands, steam rising from it in visible curls. Her brain worked quickly, the gears turning like the inside of the clock her father designed in his hallway: had she heard him snoring tonight? She couldn't remember. But everything had felt right when she left, just like normal. After a moment of hesitation, Asami shut the door quietly. Hiroshi just watched her, a serious look on his face, a look that maybe said I'm disappointed in you, Asami, and she felt her heart thump in her chest. She hated disappointing her father.
"What are you doing here, Asami?" He lifted two fingers and beckoned for her to come closer. She did, feet dragging on the ground as a rock sank to the bottom of her stomach.
The chair next to him squeaked as he pulled it out. Asami sat on it delicately, as if afraid it would break beneath her. She studiously avoided her father's eyes, clasping her hands in her lap and shuffling her feet. "I was, um, out for a walk. I can't sleep."
Hiroshi laughed, the sound a surprising comfort. "Dressed like that? Young lady, I was not born yesterday. Where were you going?"
A blush spread across her cheeks, the color of spring flowers, and Hiroshi's smile lingered on his face. Nine, and getting older with every passing moment. They always grew up too fast, everyone said, and he believed them. It felt like just yesterday he was teaching her how to read, his wife curled up next to him in bed as they took turns correcting her pronunciation. Asami was a perfect blend of the two of them: she had her mother's charm and beauty with his determination and spirit. Even though her face was turned away, he could still see her eyes in his mind. They were green, green like tall summer grass, green as the leaves on their apple trees, the green of earth and nature and life. Compared to his own dark eyes, they were polished gems glittering in her face.
She finally answered him, her voice conspicuously higher than before. "I was going out into the city."
"Interesting," he said. "What is out in the city for a young girl of your age?" She said nothing. "The shops?" His gentle prodding moved her to speak.
"Yes!" She grabbed the opportunity that he granted her, looking back at him with a cunning smile. "I was going to the toy shop. The one to the west, with all the beautiful toys in the windows, the one with the golden komodo rhino rocking toy - you remember it?" Oh, he remembered. The silly rocking horse had been on her list of 'Gifts Asami Wants Because She Loves You Very Much,' he recalled. A list somehow found a way onto his desk once in a blue moon, sitting atop his other paperwork.
Hiroshi just nodded, turning to pull the teapot off the small stove behind him. He poured more tea into his porcelain cup and the smell of it reached Asami's nose a few moments later: sweet, sweet and fragrant like spring. Jasmine tea, then. Dad loved jasmine tea, always drinking it on rainy days or days when they visited mother's beautiful tomb.
He made a soft noise of agreement when finished. "Ah, yes, the toy shop. Lovely place. But are they not closed this late at night?"
"Oh!" She hadn't thought of that. "Well, I mean, I just like to go and look at the toys. Through the window." Her hands began to fidget in her lap, moving nervously as he took a long sip of his tea, hiding his mouth behind the cup. Asami's dark hood fell off her head and revealed her hair when she shifted in her seat. The long locks cascaded down her shoulders in inky and tangled curls, framing her pale face. "There are a lot of toys there, and I just want to see what I might buy next time. You know, plan how to spend my money."
A small smile curved his lips. "There is no need to lie to me, Asami. I have known about your visits into the city for quite some time."
She started visibly. "What do you mean? What visits?" Hiroshi supposed he should be proud that his daughter couldn't lie very well.
"I know you have been visiting the city, Asami. You usually go on nights when I have meetings because you know I'll be tired. I know you sneak out by climbing over the wall when the guards aren't looking, and that you sneak back in when they switch swifts. You usually follow the same route: east on Tu Avenue until you reach Jingzhi Road, at which point you go north. The eighth house on Wanqu Circle is where you stop. A woman named Chikyu lives there, about seventy years old and never married." At her incredulous look, he just laughed, a deep and booming sound that echoed in the kitchen. "The guards came to me when they saw you sneaking back over the wall one sunrise. I had them keep an eye on you and had one follow you into the city. Oh, no doubt you didn't see him," her father said. Asami had started to open her mouth and nearly pouted when he cut her off. "I hired the best. He's been following you in the city for months."
He paused for a moment, hand stroking his beard, as if deep in thought. "What I cannot figure out, though, is why you would visit her. By all accounts, she is just a retired old woman."
Head bowed, Asami sighed. "She's my teacher."
She still recalled the first time she had met Chikyu (she refused any kind of honorary title; "Don't call me 'master'," the old woman had scolded, "I am but a woman and a student"). By then Asami had snuck out two times, wandering the city by moonlight just to feel the fresh summer wind ruffling her hair. When she began, she hoped to learn the streets and enjoy herself. Along the way she discovered that Republic City was an exercise in beauty. Asami fell in love with all of it: the tangy scent of roast duck-pig cooking and the sweet smell of freshly-cut panda lilies; the novel taste of sickly-sweet buns shaped like crescent moons, whose insides were filled with pickled fruits that spilled on her hands and left them sticky; the bright lights that flashed and painted the city in a million shades of yellow and orange, even though they blinded the stars and rendered the sky dark in comparison; the booming songs of distant tsungi horns and the slow, sorrowful harmonies of a wandering musician plucking the strings of his yueqin; the sensation of a warm summer rain dancing on her skin, the storm leaving her drenched and the streets almost empty.
Above all else, she loved the bending. Benders were omnipresent in the city, walking around just like normal people. When it rained, waterbenders still walked the streets, bending the drops away from them without thinking. She longed to bend more than anything, but Asami knew that she was too old. Almost everyone that could bend began before they were eight, and she was already nine. Her dreams remained unfulfilled, but every time she saw a firebender begin his dance or an waterbender's arms fluidly move, she paused to watch. Sometimes benders of different elements performed together, lacking only an airbender to complete the cycle. Their movements worked in tandem to create beautiful displays of blazing fire, crumbling earth, and smooth water. Her father had taken her to probending matches in the past, but that fast and furious bending was meant for fighting, not for fluid beauty like this.
On her third time out in the city she was standing at the edge of an alleyway and watching a complicated waterbending demonstration when she felt a presence behind her. She stiffened. An amused voice emerged from the darkness of the alley. "Do not worry, child. There is no need to fear me. No doubt you have run into other strangers in the city, though I have noticed that you try to hide in the shadows."
Asami had whirled and held her fists up in a defensive position. An old woman stood there, back slightly bent and wrinkles lining her face. Ancient though she looked, she had a familiar dignity in her pose, one that even a child like Asami could recognize. While the little girl had studied her, the woman simply raised a brow and huffed. "No, that will not do. That position is horrible." Walking forward slowly, the woman reached out for the child's arms. Immediately Asami moved away, pressing her back to the wall. The old woman stopped several feet away, eyeing her. "Fine, then. Move your left foot back three inches and put your weight on the balls of your feet. No, more," she instructed. Cautiously, Asami followed her advice, adjusting her position. The old woman tilted her head and examined her feet. "Better. If you are not rooted, you cannot withstand even the lightest breeze."
With her advice, the woman charmed Asami. She had continued to instruct her for the better part of an hour. When she left, the heiress followed her home, pestering her for more guidance; the benders had finished their presentation long ago and, truth be told, she had completely forgotten about them.
The elderly woman told her that she was called Chikyu: "An old name," she had said. "It was the name of Avatar Kyoshi's most famous disciple, the oldest of the Kyoshi Warriors." But Chikyu had insisted that she was too aged to be teaching a young sprout like her and refused Asami's entreaties to train her. She didn't give in the second night either, or even the third. It wasn't until the fourth night, when she opened her door to a drenched Asami, green eyes fever-bright and determined, that she sighed and relented. "Come in, child. Show me your defensive stance." And so Chikyu began to teach her and hadn't yet stopped. Asami visited the old woman as often as possible and practiced in all of her spare time. Her mind became occupied with the different forms and holds, the sharp movements of her arms and the fluidity of her legs.
Asami realized with a start that she had lost herself in her thoughts and her father was looking at her expectantly. "I'm sorry?"
The cup in his hands was half-full, Hiroshi's face solemn. "I asked what the old woman is teaching you."
"She's teaching me how to defend myself." The words slipped out without thought, and Asami immediately wished she could grab them out of the air and stuff them back in her mouth.
Her father's face blanched. "Asami, you cannot mean to say that you have been sneaking into the city, alone and open to all forms of crime, including kidnapping - and you would be a perfect choice, the rich Sato heiress - just to learn how to fight?"
"That isn't it. It isn't just fighting." Her hands, previously in her lap, began to shake and she crossed them over her chest. "I remember when mother died," she said. "They were able to get into the house and kill her. I don't want that to happen to me. I want to be able to protect myself."
Silence followed her statement. Hiroshi's face was equal parts mournful and contemplative, his brows furrowed. At last he spoke, features smooth and voice calm again. "You are right, Asami. Of course you are." Raising his hand, he pushed up his golden glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I should have thought of this earlier." She had always been a singularly determined girl. "If you would like to continue with your lessons, I will look into it and find the best instructor in the city-"
"No!" His eyes wide, he stared at her. Asami rarely yelled. "I mean, no, please don't. I want to study with Chikyu. She's good, the best - she used to be a Kyoshi Warrior. Do you know that they're tasked with protecting the island? They don't have any male warriors there. Anyway, I want her. Only her." By the end of her speech, Hiroshi was observing her closely.
After a long moment, he sighed. "Fine. She will remain your teacher." Asami's face brightened, a pale star shining in the darkness of the night, and Hiroshi's hand reached out on instinct to cup her cheek. "You remind me so much of your mother, Asami."
Asami frowned. Everyone always said that. "I'm not mom, dad," she said, green eyes catching his gaze. "I can't be her. I won't be a lady like she was. I'll want to learn how to fight and fly your airplanes, to drive the fastest cars we have and hold my own against a bender, to watch probending tournaments and go swimming in Yue Bay. So don't go hoping that I'll grow up to be her, because I won't. I'm just me."
Hiroshi smiled, moustache twitching.
In the years that were to come, Asami would find herself remembering the moment that followed at the oddest times. She recalled every little detail with near-perfect clarity: the feeling of Hiroshi's fingers curled against her skin; the nearly-empty cup of jasmine tea in his other hand; the small and secretive smile that bowed his lips; the mischievous glint in his slightly narrowed eyes; the low and serious tone of his voice. Many times in the not-so-distant future this moment would surface in her mind and she would doubt herself. Could she have known then? She always dismissed the idea. Of course not. But that uncertainty still lingered in the back of her mind, festering like an open wound.
At the time, a young Asami just listened to her father's comforting words and felt buoyed by his love. His smile reassured her she had done no wrong by speaking her mind.
"I do not expect you to be your mother." His grin faded slowly as he continued to speak, and his tone became softer, different. It was the tone he used when he told her of his plans for the future industrialization and improvement of the city she loved, the tone of both his passion and obsession.
"All I ever wanted for you, Asami," he said, "was a world where you could be yourself without worrying."