—she still did.
they say that it was only by a brilliant design that she came to fall for the prince.
she certainly never meant to.
-
as children with their heads mapping the clouds and the world igniting in their eyes, the pink flush painting her cheeks whenever he passed was only at the thought of his smile, which illuminated his handsome young face.
she didn't know why, but something within her seemed to shimmer and set her insides aglow, and he was the only one who'd ever made her feel like this.
it wasn't something she understood, just that seeing one of those gold mines being meant for her would have created a thousand days in the short span of her existence.
-
when age stole the remaining sun-splayed hours left to be spent in turtleduck ponds and with artful dolls, along with mothers and playgrounds stringed together around the cascading palace walls, they were replaced with lethal weaponry and disarming skills, and strict unforgiving hawks for masters and barren rooms in the academy.
when they returned to each other nothing stayed the same, and she never did see that grin adorning him again.
oddly enough, in its stead was a edge in his tone normal boys didn't deserve, but princes weren't allowed to be normal and there is more stiffness in his gait and a distance miles away trapped in his gaze, but her stomach churns at the accidental brush of shoulders, and she's not so sure if it's a bad thing.
-
what everyone's foreseen as inevitable were the stumble of events that lead to his recycling failure as royalty and heir.
a few harsh words and his father's seal were all it took to send him on a quest that might as well have substituted forever.
it was the perfect opportunity to dissolve the weakness that slipped into her invincible facade, because there would no longer be any passing distractions that would have hindered her metamorphosis into a spotless fire nation marionette.
true, that his absence meant a decline of hitching breaths and improper blushes at his expense, but even that couldn't control the boundless flight of her mind, wondering which seas had been crossed by his navy ship, if the harmonious notes of his sugi horn still resounded into the night, or if he still preferred his fire flakes crisp and black at the edges from being overcooked.
-
it didn't seem like years when any semblance of him came to her once more; it seemed like lifetimes.
it, too, seemed ironic that the boy she had so quietly pined for in those days of laughter and light was the one who would save her from the ornery routine of her future, in the form of the prey to her and his sister, and their little dangerous trio with the sole purpose of striking down anyone who crossed, much less threatened, the path of their nation's success.
in those petty and all too quick skirmishes with the village warriors with their silly makeup and admittedly more challenging battles with the avatar's companions, she often wished it would be his turn to rendezvous with them.
of course, she would fling her knives at him as she would an enemy, but she would allow him the grace of only a couple of them not going wide, and she would shrug her shoulders at her team mate's inquiries about her sudden lack of skill.
she would simply say that the scar, so unfamiliar and out of place on his features, surprised her, and she would promise them that it would not happen again. it would be a lie if she denied that she imagined every inch and crevasse of the mark so many times that seeing it wouldn't really be much of a shock to her, and only free the old butterflies from the emotionless web woven into her soul.
-
the only second time his lips landed on hers- the first had been in the garden, soaked from a fateful fountain, pushed together in some form of a prank they never learn from- she thinks it might be the reason she even entertained the notion of romance.
it's not so much the missing sparks exploding in her sky and lightning doing the waltz on her skin, as the utter sense of contentment and something bordering on joy, that rushed through her in that exact moment.
she has waited too long for it, and despite him having changed in more ways than she bargained - from the length of tousled hair hanging from his head, the gaunt angles of his face, the silence of his voice when he speaks of the earth people that goes deeper than she could ever reach - that can't affect how the hard planes of his body molded into hers whenever they embrace.
it's not how the fairy tales portrayed it as, but it comes close as she tastes rose petals on his tongue, so she ignores the whisper in her ear, of her own wiser self, warning her of its foolishness.
-
that part of her had never been wrong before- but that does not soften the blow upon the sight of parchment rolled up on her sheets.
without reading over the inked message, she already knew it was too late, and he was too far gone, and that she was in too deep to let go so easily.
because even when all the logic and reasoning that came with loving him disappeared, like the sun into a hollow night, she realized that—