I don't know if it was the caffeine that I drank but this prompt was surprisingly the easiest to write...or at least think up of ideas for!
I literally woke up at three this morning questioning why the hell I was awake at the ungodly hour and somehow began thinking about one of the more interesting questions on one of my college applications from the past (well now you have a more defined idea of what my age is, because I am definitely no savant that graduated from high school at the mere age of 12).
The question was like 'What's your favorite song?' I had typed in something like Crush by Pendulum (awesome band btws) but I was wondering...what if I had answered something creatively like...'the beat of my mother's heart is my lullaby' or something spectacularly odd like so?
And then bam—this plot formed and I was dying in bed, because I had nowhere to write these ideas. Ridiculous—I have a pad of paper and pen by my bed but at the rate that my ideas were pouring out, it would have taken waaaay too long to write out.
I had actually originally planned to completely write out one of these other Zutara stories that I had been working on for this one, since it fit, but this idea that is written before just metastasized. And then I realized, fuck, Stereo Hearts by Gym Class Heroes totally fits this and then I cursed again when I realized that Stereo Love by Edward Maya would totally work too.
So there I writhed, brimming in drabbles.
But I digress-Zutara, day five theme: heartstrings. Oh, this is AU, like most Zutara fics, just btws.
"Master Katara!" a rush of healers exclaimed, running down the halls of the hospital, interrupting the said woman and forcing her to look up from her work on a wounded soldier.
"Yes?" the dark-haired and cerulean-eyed waterbender inquired, folding her arms across her chest, eyebrows furrowed when seeing the concerned countenances of her colleagues.
"Come see!" one of the younger women explained, motioning for her to follow her.
The 26-year old master was quick on her feet, lifting her parka robes to give her legs a greater span so that she could run more swiftly. "What happened? Is there an emergency case?"
One of the healers accompanying her bit her lip. Katara looked to the left to meet eyes with another nurse to see if she could get a more vocal answer. But none of the women around her seemed willing enough to explain the situation, and Katara was left to behold the sight on her own without warning.
"Oh...La," the master waterbender gasped when she processed what was in front of her.
Shahira, one of the healing interns, was down at her knees at the side entrance of the healing center, shaking nervously. She looked up to meet Katara's ocean eyes, almost begging forgiveness. "I-I found him washed up on the shore!"
"W-what do we do?" one of the nurses behind her wailed.
Katara gently clenched her teeth, looking down at the unconscious man before them.
Fire Nation.
It wasn't hard to distinguish him as one of the enemy soldiers—he still proudly donned the obsidian black and blood red uniforms on his body, the fire elemental stamped onto the hilt of his double broadswords that lay disarrayed beside him.
She took a deep breath in and out before looking up toward the soldier's head, his head lying on its side so that only one side of his foreign fair-skinned face was visible, a mop of wet black hair plastered on his skin.
Kneeling down slowly, she lifted a cautious hand towards his mouth, checking for any hint of breathing. The other healers around her stepped back from the enemy specimen and she didn't blame them for their fear of him.
The war between the Fire and Water Nation began so many generations ago that the eldest of them in the Water Nation said that even the moon couldn't remember when the fighting began. But ever since then, weapons were passed down from father to son, the blood of fallen soldiers further rusting their blades.
The Water Nation was fortunate—not only did the great ocean separate the two nations, forcing the Fire Nation to build ships in order to reach them, but the waterbenders also held the power to quickly heal their wounded. Katara had been one of the prime founders of the healing centers, deciding it was best to hide the hospital where the invading Fire Nation troops would never dare to look, underneath layers of snow and ice. Had the Fire Nation known that the Water Nation had such a great militaristic advantage, they would undoubtedly try to capture and enslave their healers, something that no one would desire.
After much success, Katara's healing center bustled with activity, and she took many students to learn the art of healing through waterbending, as masses of their fathers, sons, brothers, and friends came back covered in injuries. It took much will to heal them—all—and then to let them go after they were all fixed up to just head back into war again.
Some men, who had fought all since they could stand, had been to the healing center numerous times, each time, coming back with worse and worse damage to their bodies.
But what had to be done had to be done. They could not just give up the war now.
Katara danced her fingers over the Fire Nation soldier's cold skin, placing her thumb just near his mouth, waiting for a light exhale. When she found it, she braced herself.
He was alive.
Her breath caught. Even she wasn't sure what to do.
"He's alive," she announced, and mixed gasps of terror and uncertainty echoed down the hall.
Continuing to examine him, she slowly turned his head up, jerking her hand back when she saw the marred skin of the other side of his face.
Some women inadvertently screamed.
Her eyes narrowed. Only the Fire Nation would dare to be so careless as to hurt themselves with their destructive fire.
How disgraceful.
The scarred skin stared back at her.
"W-wha-what are we going to do, Master Katara?"
Closing her eyes, she meditated a moment and then declared her resolve. "Take him to the nearest empty room."
Sounds of worry emerged from the crowd of healers. "But Master Katara!"
"But what?" the master waterbender asked sternly. She knew what the others were thinking however: intake an enemy soldier? She must have been out of her mind!
"Yes, he's the enemy," she continued as the other nurses fell to a silent hush. "But he is all the same someone's son, maybe someone's lover, perhaps someone's father. I'm sure if they had picked up one of ours overseas we would want them to do the same."
Unwillingness still hung in the stale air.
"Our mission here is to save lives—not to choose who lives or dies," she added. And then standing back up to walk back to the patient that she had been working on previously, she concluded, "I'll let the elders know about the situation. Ensure that he is in good care, otherwise."
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"You what?" the elder erupted when hearing what she had to say.
"Elder Pakku," she continued calmly, "I have a Fire Nation soldier in my ward."
"Master Katara, you must know the danger that you have placed on this entire nation!"
"He's unconscious. He's not a threat right now—"
"But he will be!" the elder snapped. "I demand you throw him right back into sea!"
Something irked Katara, and she replied, "That's barely humane."
"War is barely humane!" retorted the older man, his blue eyes flashing in strong anger. "This soldier! He could have the blood of a hundred of our brothers in his wretched hands! I do not want your talented resources wasted on someone that has sinned like so!"
She opened her mouth to defend her decision but he interrupted her.
"I understand that you hold much power under your hands. You are very well respected and your leadership has helped the Water Nation, no doubt. But this," Elder Pakku snarled. "This is completely unacceptable! Your discretion here is faulty! What good will come out of healing him?"
"I was thinking that he would become a war prisoner-I'm sure my father would appreciate some intel on the enemy forces," Katara replied.
"Don't use your father's position in the military to give you credibility, Katara," the elder snapped. "This is completely unrelated—"
"My nurses and I will be overseeing him," she declared. "If he does so much as light a flame, I promise he will not see the sun the following day."
Elder Pakku had nothing to say to this, and knowing that she had won the long argument, she started to step back out of his tent.
"You are naive, Katara," she heard the elder warn as she stepped out into the night. "It will be your fault if the nation suffers because of your stubborn ignorance."
Her eyebrows furrowing, even she couldn't deny this, a hard tug on her heart telling her that she had probably made a very bad decision that she wouldn't be able to back out of.
Still apprehensive, she turned back to the healing center, entering the room where the Fire Nation soldier was, seeing three nurses gathered in the corner whispering to each other.
She looked at the practically untouched soldier.
"I thought I told you to make sure that he's in good care."
"I-I just got here," excused one of the nurses, and Katara made a face like she didn't care what they had to say.
The soldier still had his wet uniform on. He had clearly only been lifted onto the bed and then talked about.
"Why isn't he even blanketed?" she asked.
"H-he's a firebender—I'm sure he can keep himself warm," explained one of the other nurses.
"He's barely alive," Katara hissed silently to herself, but she knew she couldn't blame the other nurses for not wanting to deal with the enemy. She'd do it herself.
"Leave," she commanded the nurses. "You won't be helping anyway."
When the door was closed behind them, she sucked in a breath and started to remove his clothing, chanting to herself that he was just a human, like the rest of them.
She had garnished much hatred to the Fire Nation—something that she was surprised didn't affect the way she was treating this enemy soldier.
"You took my mother," she cursed silently at the unconscious soldier. "Your people took her life for nothing." She ripped the red cloth, almost in catharsis.
The soldier's torso and arms were decorated in slashes, some of which she recognized as welts from a strong waterbender's whip. Setting her scornful sentiments against the Fire Nation aside, she ripped bandages to bind his wounds after hovering clean water over the damage.
Once through with a body examination, she slipped blankets over his body up to his neck and looked at him for a moment.
Never had she ever been torn between her nation and her need to save lives, and she didn't want to think long about it—knowing the issue would steal her sleep.
Katara returned to the firebender's face, practically half of it covered in a scar. Instinctively she raised a hand of water to place over the scar, but she noticed that this injury was not recent, and probably well beyond healing. She threw the clean water back into the bucket.
Standing there for another minute, her face contorted into a clash of interests, she finally later left the examination room, cradling her temples in her fingers.
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"Katara."
"Sokka," she greeted as her brother served himself a bowl of soup. "How was the military meeting?"
"I heard you have a Fire Nation soldier."
A bit ticked off, she repeated, "How was your meeting?"
"Katara, this is serious."
She slammed her spoon down onto the table. "I'm aware."
"So it's true."
"Who did you hear from?"
"Father."
"Of course," she replied, looking down at her stew and avoiding her older brother's eye contact.
"I can't believe you did that."
Did she always have to support her reasoning? "Did what? Decide to save a life?"
"An enemy life, Katara."
She didn't answer, pressing the broth up to her lips.
"You know, after having lost our mother, I would have thought you of all people would understand—"
"Don't bring her into this," she interrupted. She hated it when he was patronizing, and also when he brought up what he knew was a sensitive subject to her to get her to agree with him.
"You're being irrational again. Please, before something bad happens, just—"
"I have this under control."
"No, you only think you do."
"Just trust me with this."
"I'm only worried because I don't want you to be blamed for whatever—"
"Well what can happen?" she challenged.
"Katara! An enemy soldier. Anything and everything can happen! You brought him down underground into the healing center, for La's sake! What if he is a spy? What if he's waiting for the right moment to attack? You can't be sure of anything with these bastards!"
But Katara already knew all this, in the back of her mind, and she didn't want to hear her fears out loud.
"Shut up," she told her brother. "Get out of here. I will do what I think is right."
"Katara, listen to me—"
"It's all I ever do," she concluded, getting up from the table. "Do you not think that I'm concerned about the welfare of my own people? It's all I'm ever worried about! Don't act like I'm a traitor for..." and she couldn't even finish her own sentence, disgusted of her previous action.
For taking in an enemy.
Angered and wordless, she left her tent.
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Since no one else was willing to, Katara was often left on her own to check on the soldier each night, and she cursed herself each time she entered the room.
For nights, his condition didn't improve, and for days she was criticized for harboring the enemy.
She was becoming jaded and weary, and one night when she came into his room, a single candlelight illuminating the room for her, she exploded in frenzy.
Tucking her face into her hands and balling into the wall, she sobbed her heart out, pounding the ground and punching her own arms in an attempt to remove all of her frustration. She ended up writhing on the floor in tears as the moon reached its highest point in the sky.
What's wrong with me? What am I doing? Why am I here?
Paralyzed in her own emotions, her tears eventually drowned themselves out and she raised a sleeve to rid her cheeks of them, hating the soldier for landing on the shore, hating the ocean for not having taken his life, hating fate for the situation she was in, hating herself for putting herself in the midst of it all.
Her lower back ached, her body having been curled up for the past hour in her breakdown.
She looked over at the flickering candle at her side, its wax almost out. It was the typical candle that the nurses carried around at night—a small contained fire balanced on a short wick, within a high walled glass bowl. None of them wanted fire to spread further than it needed to.
A rustle of the blankets and she nearly lashed out a water whip, startled.
Was he awake? Maybe the fire in the room was somehow giving him life—no, that wasn't it.
She didn't know anything about firebenders at all, having never met one, but she was pretty sure that just they couldn't just extrapolate power from fires around them…but just to be safe, she took the candlelight in her hand and covered the light from the flame with her other hand. She stood up slowly, cold sweat running down her back, making her way towards the firebender's side.
She didn't realize that she was holding her breath and she gasped suddenly, scaring even herself.
Look at yourself, she scolded inwardly. You say you have this under control—what a lie.
Turning her eyes back to the flickering flame, she thus braved herself to place it right over the Fire Nation soldier's face, thinking that if she could do this then—
His eyes opened.
She nearly dropped the candle in her fright, her heart jumping out of her chest.
She knew that the people of the Fire Nation had yellow eyes, but she had never imagined to see the liquid gold hue so close. She would have never imagined the amber to be so alive—so much like the sun, and for a moment she experienced a nervous fear when she saw how those honey eyes sparkled passion for even the smallest little candlelight flame in their reflection.
Unmoving, she slowly counted down to calm her breathing.
His eyes shifted to meet hers and she found her heart rate increasing once again.
What the hell to do? What the hell to do?
Her defensive instinct dragged a trail of water from a nearby bucket, reading herself in case the firebender suddenly got up and started attacking her.
But he did nothing and she took one more glance at his eyes, seeing an emotion that she couldn't read, but sure that there were no murderous intents hidden underneath the golden orbs.
She saw his lips part and she could see him struggle to speak—but no voice came out of his throat, a scratchy croak emerging instead.
"You're safe here," she suddenly found herself saying. "You're in a hospital."
His mouth closed and his eyes looked over at the dark shadow of the water that she was lifting behind her. Some sort of apprehension flickered through his eyes, but within the same flash she noticed his fear, it was gone.
"I-I'm not going to hurt you," she promised, but she found that she wasn't able to let her water down.
He must be terrified, she thought, an observation that she didn't know the origination of.
Maybe it was just human.
Katara swallowed thickly and released the water, letting it splash soundly to the floor. His eyes followed the water and then shifted back to her face. She forced a calm expression, though she was sure that she actually looked ecstatic and terrified herself.
"We found you washed up on the shore," she slowly explained.
His eyes strayed away—was that shame?
Now what, she asked herself. Could she just leave him there, now that he was conscious?
"I'm Katara," she continued. "I'm…helping you heal."
His amber eyes locked on her eyes once she admitted this. They seemed to question her motives.
She bit her lip. "Do you need anything?"
He stared at her for another moment before turning his attention back to the flame of the candle that she had left on the counter by the bed in her fright. Then his eyelids slowly dropped.
Allowing her heavy breath to simmer down, she nodded to herself and slowly backed out of the room. "I'm going to leave the light there," she told him, thinking that it was perhaps his only sense of comfort in the world at the moment.
Then closing the door behind her, she pressed her face into her hands and jaggedly breathed out.
Now what?
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A shriek emerged down the hall.
Katara burst out of the room that she was in and hurriedly run over to the room with the Fire Nation soldier—he was attacking?
But then she half-relaxed upon seeing four or five nurses around the bed of the soldier, and the healers looked at her with great fright in their eyes. "Is anyone hurt?" she asked.
"He was moving, Master Katara! He must be conscious!" one of them explained quickly, pointing at his slowly clenching fingers.
She moved towards his bed and more closely watched his trembling hand. She had already known that he had regained consciousness, but this fact, she decided to keep to herself.
His eyes suddenly opened and the nurses behind Katara shrieked again.
The firebender met eyes with Katara and open seeing her face, familiarity flashed through his amber eyes, and his hand suddenly jerked up to briefly make contact with her wrist before she herself hurdled backwards, freaked out by his unexpected movement. The nurses in the room were still as stone—not used to seeing their master waterbender this hesitant ever before.
"I'm sure he needs water and something to eat," Katara simply stated. Not one of her healers moved, so she quickly pointed to two of them to fetch the soldier some nourishment. She dismissed the other nurses and they all scurried to head out of the door. But before they were completely out of the room, she added, "Not a word of this goes to anyone, alright? If anyone asks, he is still unconscious, is that clear?"
When they all nodded a yes, she left them go.
She already had enough trouble dealing with the questions people asked her when he was unconscious, so she knew for sure that she didn't want to bother with them if they were to know that he was conscious.
Katara could tell that his eyes were still watching her, but she denied any amount of eye contact, turning her back to him and waiting patiently for the two nurses to come back with water and food.
She heard a sharp exhale coming from his body and swiveled around immediately, putting her hands up in a fighting position, but she found that she had greatly overreacted, seeing that his body was still in the same place lying in bed and that the only thing that had moved was his lips.
Had he been trying to talk? Perhaps, he was too weak to do so?
The waterbender tested the temperature of his skin, touching the back of her hand on his face, ignoring the fact that his eyes were wide open and taking note of her every move.
His skin was cold, still. This probably meant that he was still too weak to produce any flames, right? Because if he couldn't warm up his own body, then he couldn't create fire spontaneously, right?
She hoped her intuition was right.
"Master Katara!" the two nurses exclaimed when they came back with a cup of water and a bowl of warm broth.
She turned back to the Fire Nation soldier, before asking, "Can you sit up?"
He was still for a moment, his eyes focused on her, but then he visibly tried to get up onto his elbows. Failing to do so, he stopped struggling and looked away.
Katara looked back at the two nurses. "Help me sit him up," she commanded, and they reluctantly obeyed, though it was clear that they were uncomfortable. The three of them got him up, supporting his back. The blanket around him fell to his waist, revealing his torso's fair skin, a shade that was not at all common in the Water Nation.
She held the cup up to his lips and he closed his eyes, slowly tilting his head back and she allowed the water to stream slowly into his mouth. Eager to get this done as soon as possible, she forced a little bit too much water through his lips, causing him to cough, spurting water back. Here, she lost her voice and couldn't ask if he was okay, but she let his cough subside before placing the cup back onto his lips, this time around making sure that she didn't make the same mistake.
"Hand me the soup," she told one of the nurses and they slowly fed him until the bowl was empty as well.
Katara dismissed her colleagues and commenced to lower the soldier back to lying position. She could feel some of his muscles contract—this meant that he was slowly regaining his movement, which worried her, because she still wasn't sure about what to do know that he was actually awake.
Keeping a calm façade, she rolled the blanket back over his body and started to leave before noticing the run out candle on the counter.
After a moment of thought, she told him, "I'll come back with a candle."
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She still hadn't informed anyone about his health in progress, and had her nurses lie that the firebender was unconscious.
But nevertheless, the soldier was slowly regaining his health, and each day she came back, she found his skin just a tad bit warmer, his eyes growing more expressive with each visit. At this rate, she predicted that he'd be completely okay within the next week.
Normally if this was one of their soldiers that prognosis would mean that they would have to go back into battle within that amount of time.
However in the case of the enemy soldier…
She didn't want to think about it, but her apprehension grew by the day, her amount of sleep she got per night, waning. Under the moonlight, she was either in the soldier's room tending him or in her own tent thinking about what the hell to do with him when the time came around.
At one point, she placed her ear next to his heart and listened for the beat.
She was astonished at what she heard, looking up in awe before placing her ear back down on his heart again.
Was this the way that all firebender hearts beat?
She had never heard any heartbeat more…musical.
Lingering a while with her ear over his chest, she tried to make out the individual sounds—a pop, thump, lub, buzz, even a hiccup sometimes. His heartbeat was quick, light, happy.
There was no one else in the room except her, so she found herself nowhere else to look but back at the soldier's face, whose eyes were practically unreadable. She felt her eyebrows furrow and then placed her head back onto his chest, wondering if perhaps she had just been hearing things.
But no, she didn't hear what she was used to hearing—a steady, strong, beat—she heard once again all the staccatos and gurgles under his ribs.
She didn't dare say anything to him about her strange discovery, regaining her composure quickly and then bidding a quick goodnight.
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"I swear to you, you have to hear his heart. His heart sings," she told her colleagues, walking them down quickly to the soldier's room.
"That's what you gathered us here for?"
Katara dismissed their indifference. "You don't understand. You have got to hear this—it'll really teach you a lesson."
That underneath everything, he is just a human all the same.
She paused a moment when this thought occurred in her head.
She suddenly worried that perhaps she was no longer treating him as a patient of the enemy.
"Master Katara?"
The said waterbender composed herself and opened the door to his room. They all gathered around his bed, until Katara encouraged them to listen to his heart.
"Go on." She motioned for someone to start.
One of the middle-aged healers leaned forward, slowly placing her ear on his chest, half grimacing. She listened for a long time and then rose her head, her eyebrows furrowed.
"You heard?" Katara asked.
The healer bent down to listen again. "I-It sounds like any normal heart to me, Master Katara."
The master's lips pursed.
Perhaps she was going crazy.
"Uh, Rowana," she said, looking at the next healer. "Why don't you try?"
Rowana hesitantly lay her head down on the firebender's chest, and after a few seconds snapped back up, shaking her head. "I…I don't know what you're talking about, Master Katara."
Katara's forehead creased. "Okay," she replied and then told the nurses to scoot over so that she could hear the soldier's heart for herself again. Perhaps it was just yesterday that it sounded like his heartbeat was that way—perhaps she had been losing a lot more sleep than she could to keep her sanity.
But she heard the musical notes of his heartbeat again.
"You guys don't hear it?" she asked in disbelief, before placing her head down on his chest again to confirm.
"Master…maybe we're just less experienced in you with this—maybe we can't catch on the difference as well as you—"
"No, that's ridiculous," Katara retorted. "The difference is clear as day!" But she realized her words were sharper than she wanted them to be when she saw the healers gathered around her suddenly seem taken aback. "I-I'm sorry," she then apologized. "I…" and she trailed off before saying, "You're all dismissed."
One nurse, Sahara, stayed behind though. "Master Katara…can I talk to you a moment?"
The upset master waterbender agreed and the two of them stepped outside of the room.
"What's on your mind, Sahara?"
Sahara looked down at her shoes. "Actually, Master…we were all a little bit concerned about what you have on your mind…"
"What are you talking about?"
"Well…the firebender is getting better," she said, matter-of-factly.
"I realize this."
"And we were worried that you didn't know what to do."
To this, Katara couldn't give an answer.
"And we weren't sure...about everything," Sahara concluded.
The master waterbender took a deep breath. "I appreciate that you are all concerned about me. I…will figure it out—this shouldn't worry you ladies at all…this is my own burden to carry, okay? Just please ensure that our soldiers are doing fine—I can take care of the rest, alright?"
Sahara nodded, before giving Katara a quick bow and then leaving.
But to be honest, Katara was just lying to herself.
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Walking in, Katara set yet another lit candle on the counter, placing the one that had run out from the night before into her pocket. She had been giving him candle every night since that the day his eyes had opened—and she didn't think that his eyes admired anything more than the flame that she brought him each night.
She watched him watch the fire flicker for a while, her mind tumultuous and trying to determine everything out. She was still keeping his health a secret. And she still didn't know what to do when he was finally healed.
By now he was strong enough to be able to sit up on his own, eat slowly on his own, hold a cup up to his lips on his own.
At times if she was close enough, he'd reach for her arm, but she never understood what he meant—though it seemed that bringing more water or more food always satisfied him.
She interrupted his serene meditation of gazing at the candlelight.
"What am I going to do with you?" she blurted angrily, and she immediately scorned herself for speaking what was in her mind, but figured that she might as well get it off her chest.
His golden eyes immediately met hers. She didn't know what was it was, but she suddenly felt immensely guilty for what she had just said.
"Sorry," she apologized.
Oh La, I must be losing my mind. Apologizing to someone I hate?
She shook her head to herself. "I should get going." She stepped through the doorframe but then stopped, hearing something that sounded like the shadows of words. She turned to look back behind her.
"Thank you," a male voice said in a rasp, and seeing how his golden eyes were looking right at her, she knew the firebender had just spoken to her.
Katara stood there, stupefied and not sure of what to do.
"Thank you, Katara," he repeated, his voice coming out stronger this time. "You didn't have to do…all this for me."
Something clicked in her mind though, and suddenly, all she felt was misery and anger. She turned her back to him, not bothering to face him.
"You know, for days, I've been in such a fight with myself. Every second you spend here is another second that I've betrayed my own nation," she explained bitterly, not caring if the damn firebender was actually listening.
She found her eyes trailing back to his amber eyes.
"It's only you, you know?" he replied slowly.
Her eyebrows furrowed. What in La was he talking about?
"My heartbeat."
"What?" she asked, half snarling.
"You were talking about my heartbeat to the other nurses—how it sings."
"I don't understand."
"It only sings when you're near."
Her eyes narrowed when she realized what he was trying to imply. "Don't act like you're in love with me, you wretched Fire Nation soldier."
His amber eyes retreated to the ceiling. "I don't play with people's hearts."
She didn't buy it.
"That's impossible. I don't believe you. We will always be at war with each other," she continued. "It's dictated even in nature. Fire turns water into nothing but air. Water turns fire into nothing but ash."
He returned to her eyes and what he replied shook her through to her bones.
"I'd defy nature for you."
So it hits the theme because...his heart was singing out for her...or something. These themes don't have to be taken literally.
So this plotbunny completely spawned in front of my eyes and I am already forming ideas for the longer story! I'm not sure what the final title will be, but I'll definitely be using the basis of this plot for the beginning of it, so watch out for the upcoming story (and it will definitely be much better written than this scrap of a one-shot, lol)! I'll write it once I have the time—but sit back for now and think of this as a prologue!
Let me know what y'all think!
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