She turns her head and looks at me, curious and a fearless as a baby linxlion. Her golden eyes fixed on me in curiosity, long black bangs hang in her face. "What are you doing all the way down here," I mumble. She pounds her hands on the hard cobble stone floor. "Don, Don, Dum." I think she's too young to understand the question. Barely two. Both of us are on hands and knees underneath a table in the lounge. I was patrolling when I stumbled across her. "Music," she says smiling happily. Music.
I suppose a prison is an odd place to be growing up I think to myself staring at her pearly white baby grin. I never would have thought about it before. I would be lying if I said I didn't at least feel sorry for her now. "Come on," I say lifting her from under her arms, "let's take you back to your cell." She gently touches the tip of the spikes on my helmet with her finger giggling slightly as they spring back and forth.
My armor clinks and clings quietly as I walk along the hallway to her mother's cell. We pass in and out of the shadows in the poorly lit passage in silence; the girl just sucks her thumb like she's in trouble or something. I don't know why she would think so though. Seems too young know about dangers of consequences that come with breaking out of jail. Nor can I begin to image how she escaped the cell.
She pulls her thumb out of her mouth the second I turn the key in the door. "I believe this belongs to you," I tell the darkness with as much warmth as I can muster. I can hear the noise of a body sitting straight up in the darkness and hurrying, nearly tripping over her ragged skirts, to the light. The light pierces her extremely pale skin like knives; the dead usually have more color to them. Her long eyes squint from the brightness. Her hair hangs limply about her waist; she had bangs when she first came in. I've seen her mug shots, but now they've grown out and droop past her shoulders. I hand out the child to her, whom she takes quickly into her arms. Clinging the baby to her body. The child tries to hide herself amongst her mother's hair. "Thank you," she murmurs looking down at the ground. She steps back into the darkness; I close the heavy metal door and turn the key. Tis a shame, I believe, the imprisonment has broke her spirit. Once a stubborn and powerful figure, left hand to Princess Azula, now barely a humble heartbeat thudding in the shadows. Amazing how everything can change in an instance for a life. Once a sure to be future Firelady, now this. I can hear the faint sound of a lullaby being sung in the distance as I walk down the passage back to where I'm supposed to be patrolling. I feel goose bumps appear on my arm as I listen to song. The notes sharp and lingering. Like the melody sung for a ghost. And somewhere in my stomach something fills hollowed out... After all she is only a child.