I own nothing.
"She's kind of short isn't she?" Lin told Kya and Honora as they observed the guest in the house.
"Eh, she's alright. I mean she looks average to me." The waterbender said with indifference.
"She's clinging to him like drapes. Tacky. Can't even be her own person, typical airhead girls." Lin said, annoyed.
"Why Lin, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were jealous." Honora offered while she and Kya sniggered.
"Jealous? No. I'm just looking out for him. He deserves a girl who knows who she is. Who doesn't need to be clinging to him every five seconds." Lin offered her friends.
"Like you." Kya said quickly as Lin's eyes widened and she blushed, looking away.
As Kya and Honora walked away from her, Lin had a perfect view of this girl. Tenzin had told her the other day he asked this girl to come to dinner at the island but she thought he was joking. Now she was here, in the living room of the main house, talking to Aang and Katara while leaning into Tenzin's side. Looking over the acolyte girl, Lin immediately didn't like her. She seemed nice enough, had nothing really physically wrong with her, but Lin just kept looking for something to pinpoint as wrong about her. The earthbender wanted a legitimate reason for disliking her without having to admit the actual truth, she was jealous.
Tenzin was her best friend, her playmate when they were little and the one she shared everything with. It was unnerving for her to see him this close with anyone else but her. She always felt very possessive of the airbender, taking him away from his siblings to play with him when they were little or sitting next to him during lessons or bison rides. She didn't like anyone else getting close to him, especially females. Whenever she saw any girl try to play with Tenzin, she would raise a big rock from the ground and throw it around her hand, looking directly at said girl while doing so. The girl would take off running without hesitation. There was an underlying reason to why she acted like this, but she didn't know it yet. One day, in their early teens, she would finally see.
It was a beautiful summer evening on the island. Due to an emergency in the city that required her mother's attention, a fourteen year old Lin had been spending the weekend at her Aunt and Uncle's. On that Saturday, she and Tenzin made a swing out of some ropes and wood that now hung on a tree branch.
"Push me! I want to swing really high, come on Airhead!" Lin shouted from the seat.
"Lin, be careful! I don't want you to get hurt!" Tenzin told her as she started to make herself go higher.
"Come on Airhead! You worry too much. Come on, put that airbending to good use." Lin challenged.
"I don't think so." Tenzin answered as Lin smirked in her seat.
"I'm going to jump!" Lin said as she lifted herself off the swing that was going too high for Tenzin's liking.
"LIN!" Tenzin said as he got made his air scooter and rushed over to her. He caught her in his arms just in time and she looked up at him.
"Since when had his bending gotten that fast? Since when could he hold me like this so effortlessly? Have his eyes always been that silvery-blue?" A million thoughts hit Lin like a stack of bricks to the stomach as she tried to hold back a blush and find her voice.
"Are you alright? You didn't hurt yourself did you?" Tenzin asked worriedly and Lin snapped out of her trance.
"Oh, yeah I'm fine. Thanks for catching me before I hit the ground Tenzin." Lin said shyly, pink painting her cheeks as he placed her on her feet.
"Anytime Lin. I wouldn't want you to get hurt now." Tenzin said smiling at the use of his actual name for once and leaned out to brush a stray curl over her shoulder.
Lin's breath caught in her throat as she looked at him. When his hand brushed over her bare shoulder, she involuntary shivered as her heart fluttered. She looked into his eyes and smiled a little before stopping herself. "Airhead? Come on Lin, you can be serious. So what if he got stronger and his bending got better and those eyes got so blue that they look like the sea you want to swim in..." Lin thought to herself before stopping herself and shaking the feeling off. But she couldn't really, as she looked into his eyes she couldn't help but sink in them. She was pulled out of her trance for the second time that night by the sound of his voice.
"You sure you're alright, you're unusually quiet." He asked when she didn't respond.
"Oh, yeah. Let's go sit at the edge of the cliff, I think the sun is about to go down." Lin said running to the edge of the cliff with him. They watched the sunset together, hoping that it would take her mind off of her new feelings, but it didn't. She was taken aback and scared by her thoughts that night. She had never thought about him that way and it frightened her a bit, but as they laughed and joked at the cliffside, one thought ran through the young earthbender's mind as she smiled, "Well, an Airhead it is then."
Now here she was about four months later. She had never acted on her feelings for him, never telling him anything or dropping any hints about it. She had no idea what was holding her back, maybe she was afraid of a rejection from her best friend or maybe she was afraid of the uncertainty of entering a relationship with him; no matter what it was, it always held her back. Now she stood in the kitchen of the house and watched someone hold on to what was rightfully hers and she couldn't take it any longer. Lin took her plate and drink and made her way to sit under one of the trees.
"Maybe I am a little jealous. I mean everyone knows he is mine, we may not be together that way but it's like common knowledge. Who does this girl think she is? Maybe I should tell him, maybe it will be a good thing. Why can't I tell him? Those damn eyes, I can't say anything looking into those eyes. Ugh why do they have to be so blue?!" Lin thought to herself before she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"You alright?" Tenzin asked, coming to sit beside her.
"Yeah, it was getting a little crowded in there." Lin said, avoiding his eyes when he looked at her.
"So what do you think of Jing?" Tenzin asked her after a few moments of silence.
"Is that her name? Hmm, she's alright I guess. Why do you care what I think?" Lin said turning to look over at him.
"Well you are my best friend, I do care what you think about any potential new friend or..." Tenzin started to say but Lin interrupted him.
"Girlfriend? Oh that's great, I'm sure she's a great fit. Airhead's got himself a girlfriend finally! Now if you'll excuse me I think I am going to go back inside." Lin said as her heart broke and tears formed in her eyes.
"Lin, wait." Tenzin said, seizing her upper arms to turn her around to look at him.
"What? Go be with her, she's probably lonely without you right now so you might want to get back in there." Lin said as a few tears slipped out.
"Lin, what's wrong?" Tenzin asked concerned when he saw her tears.
"Nothing, nothing. Go back to your girlfriend, I'm sure she misses you already. Go take care of her in there, I'll be fine out here." Lin said as more tears clouded her eyes.
"Why would I want to do that?" He asked her, taking a step towards her.
"Isn't that what a boyfriend is supposed to do?" She asked him.
"You said she was my girlfriend, not me. Why would I want to be there when I could be out here with you?" He told her and Lin froze.
"Lin, I don't like her like that. She just moved here and Dad asked me to invite her over for dinner to get her acquainted with the family, her parents couldn't make it due to work. She is not my girlfriend. No, I like someone else a lot more." Tenzin explained to her.
"Oh, well I'm sure that the girl you're talking about is amazing. Well I'm going to go-" Lin started to say but got cut off by a pair of lips on her own, kissing her softly. She sighed against his lips and deepened the kiss.
"You definitely are." Tenzin told her as they pulled away. He relished in the deep blush that now resided in her cheeks.
"You like me?" Lin asked him breathlessly and he nodded.
"How could I not? You're gorgeous, brilliant and you know me better than anyone. I've been wanting to kiss you since that day with the swing set." He told her and continued, "Do you want to be my girlfriend?" He asked her. She looked into his eyes and hugged him hard.
"Of course. I've been wanting to do that too, since that day. I just thought that you liked that girl and I guess I got sort of, kind of..." Lin said.
"Jealous? Don't worry I get that way when you're training at school with all those guys ogling you." Tenzin said with an angry look on his face.
"And everytime those acolyte girls fawn over you, pretending to be interested in airbending techniques to talk to you." Lin said as she and Tenzin laughed.
"Well," he kissed her again. "There will be no more of that. We have each other now and everyone will know that you're mine and I'm yours. Why don't we go share the good news huh?" Tenzin said as he started walking away but turned back when he felt a hand on his arm.
"Maybe not just yet." Lin said with a suggestive smile as she pulled him in for another kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer.
There was one thought that ran through her mind, "Thank you jealousy."