This is my first attempt at a fanfiction so please; I'm begging you try to be nice. I want your constructive criticism, but all flames will be met with sever sarcasm. Thank you, now on to the story.
Chapter 1: Quiet
I was lying in my bed, silent tears falling on to my cream colored duvet. I hear the door swing open and feel the bed beneath me slant to the side as my visitor sat down.
"Zana you can't mope forever," My older brother Zuko intones.
"I can if I want," I reply wiping away the tears so Zuko will not see.
Zuko found our mother and I only a few months ago. My mother fled the castle after she killed my grandfather, many years ago. She was captured and sent to an exile on a small island known only as The Inferno. I was sent there only a few months after she, when I was found helping known traitors of the Fire Nation. I was only eight years of age. I had thought that they were sad people who needed food and warmth, things I could, and did, give them. Zuko is exactly one year and a day older than I, so there for I am sixteen and The Great War is thankfully at an end.
I am lying here moping, because my only friend, Jin has disappeared and left only a cryptic message for me.
"Come on," Zuko pulls me up off of the bed and drags me through the entire palace until we reach his suite. "I want to show you something."
He holds out a crown, similar to the one that adorns his head. "This is the crown meant for the princess of our great nation," He says holding it up to the light.
"Yes, and some day it will look great on your daughter. How is this supposed to make me feel any better?" I ask, sourly.
"I want you to keep your title, and when someday if I am blessed enough to have a daughter I will make you a grand duchess," He says, moving to stand beside me. "If you accept," he continues, "I will crown you in a week's time at a grand ceremony. What do you say Zana?'
"I accept."
Zuko smiles and invites me to have tea with him; I decline and instead head for my favorite place the gardens that make up the center courtyard of the palace. Once I find my way there I sit myself down and pull Jin's letter out of my pocket. It is damp from my tears, and has worn creases in it from the number of times I have unfolded it to read it, but when I find no new meaning I fold it back up and return it to its place in my pocket.
Zana,
It has been you all along and this realization is the one that
leads me to know that I must depart from you. Do not worry
I will find my way in good time. The leaf that has not yet
fallen may be the one that tips the scales. In who's favor I do
not yet know, but the scale moves, that is for certain. I must leave
now. Do not act solely on instinct, think, meditate, then act.
Follow Your Path.
-J
Jin, what does this mean I question over and over. Please tell me, give me some of your guidance. What am I? What is the leaf? What's on either side of the scale? These and many more are the questions that haunt me as I make my way back to my room. Where I fall into a fitful sleep, full of scales, leaves, and pathways, none of which are mine.