I saw the most profound love I will ever encounter on a completely average workday at the Ba Sing Se zoo. I never expected it. Frankly, I thought I would find it in my own love story, after years of tender cultivation. Instead, it was thrust into my face with no forewarning, on the most ordinary day of the year.
As days go, it was nice. It was late spring, so the air was warming up. Rain was expected in the early evening.
Towards midday, a man, a woman, and a small child entered the zoo.
The man was tall and built, with light brown skin. The dark brown hair on the top of his head was pulled back into a ponytail and the sides of his head were shaved. He wore Water Tribe clothing with sealskin and polar bear fur. There was a whale's tooth boomerang strapped to his back and a katana hanging from his hip. He was a veteran.
The woman was short, but her hair, which was piled in a massive bun on her head, added a few misleading centimeters. A few untidy strands of ebony hair fell in front of her eyes, contrasting greatly with her milky skin. She was dressed in traditional Earth Kingdom garb, each piece of the ensemble a rich green hue, much nicer than anyone from the Lower or Middle Rings could afford. But unlike a member of the Upper Ring, she didn't wear the beautiful fabrics ostentatiously or with her nose in the air. Rather, she kept her nose at a sixty-degree angle with the ground at all times, as if she were staring down the dirt. I thought this odd, because she was also barefoot- obviously an earthbender. But no decent earthbender should need to watch where they're going.
The child was a little girl, about three or four years old. Her hair was black like the woman's, and bounced around her face in tight curls. She, too, wore no shoes. She skipped ahead of the man and woman, humming something to herself. Every once in a while she would jump just a bit too high to be normal.
The child reached the admission booth before the adults accompanying her. I stretched my neck to peer at her over the counter and got an eyeful of the cutest stink eye I'd ever witnessed. The child glared up at me in between thick eyelashes. She then asked me, without breaking her intense gaze, if the zoo had a rabaroo. I sputtered out an affirmation and lifted my head at the sound of laughter.
The man and woman walked up to the desk, chuckling. The man told me that it was the little girl's birthday, and that she wanted nothing more than to see a rabaroo. His eyes sparkled as he looked first at the woman, then at the girl.
I told him that yes, indeed, we had a rabaroo, and that she'd just had a litter of pups. I looked at the child, expecting her to be beaming and bouncing on her toes. She was still insulting me, my father, and my grandfather with her piercing green eyes.
The man asked for three tickets, please and handed me some money. When I gave him the tickets, I told him that the rabaroo exhibit was near the middle of the zoo, next to the tigerdillo.
The man and the woman thanked me and turned to leave ahead of the child, but she ran behind the man. Just as she was about to collide with his knees, she propelled herself onto his shoulders with a ledge she earthbended out of the ground. She laughed as he stumbled, and so did the woman.
I also laughed from my kiosk a few feet away, and told the man and woman that they had a beautiful daughter. The woman blushed and the man opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and swallowed.
I wondered if I'd said something wrong. There were plenty of inter-racial marriages by then. Even though the majority of them were between an Earth Kingdom citizen and a Fire Nation citizen, the Water Tribes were not left out by any means.
But the woman raised her head and thanked me, and for the first time I got a view of her eyes. I had expected them to be a lovely green color like the girl's, but they were a peculiar shade of light blue, even the pupils.
As the man, woman, and child walked further into the zoo, I realized that the woman was blind. The man made no effort to help her at all, and she did not stumble.
As they walked, the man put an arm around the woman's shoulders. He turned his head to whisper something in her ear, which the girl giggled at. He removed his arm from the woman's petite frame and she shrank.
Then the woman did something that completely caught me off guard. She punched the man in the arm. It didn't even look like a light, playful jab. She certainly packed some very well concealed power.
But the man didn't get angry, he smiled. He smiled like a fifteen year-old boy who'd just won his first fight. He said something to the girl on his shoulders, who nodded vigorously, and took off running. The woman followed close behind.
I watched the three of them go, and realized that whatever they had, that made them so happy and in love, I wanted.
I have not since encountered more people who radiated their love for one another so powerfully and exuberantly. And even if I don't ever find that for myself, I am comforted by my knowledge that there is that kind of love in the world, and some fantastically lucky people, however few, can enjoy it.