Before we begin...
Thank you for clicking on my story Scars. I hope you guys enjoy this FanFiction of probably one of the most memorable cartoons out there.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, besides my own. All ideas outside of the canon universe are of my own imagination. Please enjoy, and follow the story to stay updated on when I post my next chapter. Happy reading, lovies!
All her life she had wondered what it was like to have a family. She wondered what it was like to have the warm embrace of a hug; what it was like to be cherished. And as she watched another child walk through the doors of the orphanage, hand-in-hand with a young couple, her heart ached more and more. She ached to be chosen. Her heart longed to walk through those wooden doors. But after a few years of continuous prayers, she finally gave up.
After all, why would a family choose the little girl with a scar?
That's how Meili felt up until the age of ten.
Bitter. Unwanted. Alone.
She grew cold and unemotional, drifting further and further away from the other kids at the orphanage. She didn't mind it much. It's not like they talked to her, anyways. She was smaller than most girls her age, had a quick temper, and tended to keep to herself.
Only one member of the orphanage actually took the time to befriend Meili. Since the girl was daunting, most kids inside of the orphanage didn't bother to try and talk to the girl. This four-year-old boy, however, didn't see Meili's solitude as a scary front. He saw it as loneliness. And the short time he spent out on the road by himself fending for food showed him just how hard it was to be lonely.
This boy's name was Jai. He was abnormally snarky for a child and tended to cause most of the mischief that occurred within the orphanage. His impish smile became well known to the caregivers, and most of them knew that when he chuckled and grinned, trouble was only a moment away.
Jai, like Meili, didn't talk to most of the kids at the orphanage, so he instantly took a liking to her. His first interaction with her occurred a few days after he had been brought to the orphanage. Though she said nothing back to his scheming words, she found the approach of someone quite refreshing.
Meili often wondered what Jai saw in a girl like her — broken and isolated. In all honesty, he sometimes wondered that himself. A part of Jai's mind told him that it was because she was lonely, but another part of him knew it was because she resembled his late mother.
Meili took a while to warm up to the small boy, but could soon not picture her life without him. She finally had something to protect in her life. Though she couldn't do a lot of things inside of the orphanage, she tried to help Jai any way she could. The next two years that they had lived together, Meili took the time to teach Jai how to defend himself and fight. But as the years passed, the desolation of not being adopted still hung fixed in their minds.
The door to the orphanage finally closed softly, but to Meili, it sounded as if it was slammed. The clanking sound of footsteps of the couple and their new child slowly diminished, and the girl turned away as the sounds disappeared completely. The twelve-year-old sighed as she glanced to look at the other orphans, most of which still had their impish grins. But some began to grow like her; unhopeful and sad.
Of course that child, Huiyin, would've been chosen. Huiyin was a young girl with an angelic face and dimples sweeter than a dumpling. Her soft jaw and childish features contrasted Meili's heavily. The girl was older, more rugged, and cold.
Meili honestly didn't care for how she looked — whether it be sweet and innocent or cruel and gruff, she wouldn't be adopted anyways. Her face was too marred to even be seen as human.
Meili got up from her spot in the corner of the orphanage to go find solitude in one of the many shared bedrooms, ignoring the stares and tensed up bodies of those she passed. She paid no mind to their opinions. They didn't matter. Meili told herself this out of comfort, but she knew it wouldn't lessen the pain of their judgment.
The child sighed as she stepped into the small bedroom, slowly sliding down the closed door until she was sitting on the cold, wooden floor. For once in her life she wanted to be happy. Wished to be wanted. Hadn't the spirits done enough to her already? They left her homeless and family-less since birth. What more would they take from her?
She liked to believe that something was waiting for her beyond that wooden door to the orphanage, and that a better life was going to be presented to her on a silver platter of sorts. It was futile thinking she realized. Luck just wasn't something that was in her favor.
A sudden explosion lurched her from her thoughts.
The girl, drawn to the detonation, hopped up from her position on the floor, swinging open the bedroom door in urgency. Dust wafted up into her face as the sudden opening of the door triggered a gust of wind, and she coughed violently to rid the dirt from her lungs. She glanced left and right to make sense of the situation and also scanned the cloudy room for Jai.
Cries of the orphans rang through the air, making the girl tense up slightly. What was happening? Who was doing this?
A barrage of fire interrupted her thoughts, and a handful of armored men stormed into the orphanage.
"Firebenders!" a voice cried, sending the inhabitants of the room into havoc. The young orphans scattered around the small living room, most of the young children crying in fright. They took their position behind some of the couches, hoping to avoid any confrontation with the soldiers. Jai ran out from somewhere in the room into Meili's arms, weeping softly into her dusty, brown skirt.
Of course since the war had begun, the Fire Nation had been to their Earth Kingdom town before. Gaipan, the name of the town, had been rather prosperous, making it a high target for the overbearing Fire Nation. A few years back, they had raided Gaipan in an attempt to collect a 'tax money' of sorts to aid their war expenses. Never before had they actually been violent with the orphanage inhabitants, although no one seemed surprised that a situation of destruction had suddenly arose.
The small army of men stormed into the rickety orphanage behind an over-armored soldier — presumably the leader — mounted on top of a Komodo rhino.
"Where is our money?" he stated gruffly, his voice sending chills down everyone's spine.
One of the caregivers, Pelahn, took a step forward. She was the only worker in the orphanage that actually cared for the kids and treated the orphans like a family member would. She was mainly viewed as the mother figure for the kids – primarily the toddlers. Tears were slipping down her usually happy face, and she begged and pleaded the man with everything she had.
"Please! Oh please give us another day – I have three quarters of the money! If I just had a little more time—"
"I gave you two weeks," the Fire Nation soldier growled. "That is plenty of time to get the money you need."
Pelahn's lip trembled, "Please! You have to understand — Everything has been moving slower. People don't want to adopt kids in the midst of a war! It's too much of a burden!"
"Excuses don't matter to me," the soldier stated. "You are actively defying the orders of Fire Lord Ozai, and the sentence to that defiance is death."
The leader advanced forward with an outstretched hand, blade clasped tightly in his rough fingers. He ignored Pelahn's pleas, and lifted up his weapon in preparation to strike.
A sudden clank interrupted the man's advances, and his long, iron sword fell to the ground. The Fire Nation soldier yelled out in anger, twisting his head up to where interruption had originated from. A shadowy figure was situated on top of the, now, burning roof.
The scarred girl couldn't help but gawk as the shadow sprang into action, his twin tiger-hook swords wrapping around the leader's wrists before yanking him off of the Komodo rhino. Just as the mysterious figure began to take out the rest of the soldiers, arrows were fired from above, and they took out another vast majority of the Fire Nation troops.
Another small figure jumped in with a small dagger, attacking a few of the soldiers while a bigger shadow began takin some out with a log of wood.
Jai's face lit up, taking an interest to the sudden saviors while Meili grew suspicious. Who was this rag-tag team of men? Were they thieves? Bandits?
And just as soon as they had appeared, they had vanished, leaving everyone wondering who had just managed to take out a whole fleet of Fire Nation soldiers almost single-handedly.
Meili let out a deep breath as she bent down to Jai's level, inspecting his body to ensure that he was okay. She was a little surprised when she looked up into his eyes. The young boy's face was lit up in excitement despite what had just happened. All he knew was that someone totally awesome had just taken down all those men!
"Did you see that?" he questioned lowly, his grin spreading from ear to ear.
Meili nodded her head, standing back up from her crouched position, "Kind of hard to miss."
She surveyed the now ruined orphanage, which was half engulfed in flames. To the rest of the orphanage, it looked like hell, but to Meili, it looked like heaven. A chance to escape. To change her life. Meili grabbed onto Jai's hand, squeezing it slightly as she nodded toward the door, "How would you like to finally leave this place, Jai?"
The boy's face showed a little sign of confusion. He knew it was a strict law in the orphanage that they were not allowed to run away. It would cause the facility to lose future profit.
"I thought we weren't allowed?"
Meili chuckled slightly, picking the boy up from the ground before placing his small frame on her back, "I think it's about time we were given family... what do you say, Jai? How do you like the idea of you and me becoming a family? Brother and sister?"
A smile erupted from the small boy's lips, nodding at the girl's suggestion, "Let's go then!"
And so in the midst of the commotion, rubble, and ash, the two orphans fled from the scene, escaping their past to create a new future. Together.