A/N: I do not own Legend of Korra
Prompt: Hero
They called her brave, for what she did. Selfless. Honorable.
They called her a martyr—no, a hero.
And she was no such thing.
Had they seen the fear, the sadness, the resignation in the eyes of the children that day—the day she willingly condemned herself to emptiness, to loss—they would know that what she did was not heroic.
Heroes have a choice. Heroes fight knowing fully well that they could back out, hit the road running, and never look back. Heroes have the opportunity to flee, but they choose to fight. That's why they are heroes. Heroes choose, and they choose valor.
Her mother was a hero. Toph Bei Fong had had the chance to run away from the war many times, but she stayed to see it through to the end. She had a home, a place where she could return and live an altogether different life, but she chose to follow the avatar, to help finish a war that had plagued the nations for far too long. Her mother had had a choice, and so had the others who fought alongside the avatar. They were the true heroes whose names had gone down in history for choosing the welfare of the world over themselves.
Lin was not a hero, because damn it, she didn't have a choice.
She had made a promise to protect Tenzin's family. When she was young, she followed him everywhere, scared that if she looked away, he would get hurt and she wouldn't be able to save him. Like that time he broke his arm when he fell from his glider. Like when she didn't see him of for an entire winter because he had pneumonia. Like when she joined the metalbending academy and he wound up in the hospital only days later after a nasty incident with a wild young sky bison that needed to be broken in. She was his shadow, his guardian, and at the time, he hated her for it. He hated that she worried about him, hated that she was always trying to take the punches aimed at him, hated how she put herself between him and his enemies. He didn't want her protection, didn't need it.
Well, he needed it then, as the airships were gaining speed and threatening to overtake them. He needed her, and she was ready. All her life, she had been waiting for the chance to prove that her devotion to him was pure. She didn't need to think twice before saving him.
But it wasn't because of Tenzin that she didn't have a choice. That sort of thing only happens in hopelessly tragic love stories. Lin's sacrifice was not an act of love.
When she jumped, she jumped for them all.
She jumped for Jinora, the girl whose birth announcement came to Lin in the mail and had her cold and bitter for weeks afterward, knowing that she hadn't wanted a child, but wishing things could have ended differently. The young girl looked so much like her mother, but when Lin saw the fright in her beautiful brown eyes as the airships drew nearer, all reservations she had about the girl were thrown into the wind.
She jumped for Ikki, wrapped in her older sister's arms, scared and looking as though at any moment she would begin to cry. The little girl was usually so full of life, so loquacious, that Lin could hardly stand her, but there was an endearing quality to her incessant blabber, and the metalbender could not help warming up to the girl.
She jumped for Meelo, the little tyke, who baffled all imagination. He was a peculiar child, but Lin imagined he would grow into a fine young boy in time.
She jumped for Pema, the bitter past forgotten. She saw the woman solely as a mother whose husband and children were in danger. The acolyte's expression was grave; she knew the bison could not outfly the airships, could not get her family to safety in time. She had the air of a woman drowning, and Lin had to look away.
She jumped for Rohan, the newborn baby held in his mother's arms. Lin foresaw a bright future for the infant, if only he could be given the chance…
She jumped for the family she would never have, the love she could no longer claim. She jumped, because there was no other way. She could not let this family be torn apart, could not live with herself if they were captured by a wicked, twisted man exacting his revenge from innocent people.
There was no decision to be made. She leapt from Oogi's back with a calm resolve to save the airbending race, or die trying. It was achingly simple, and exquisitely unromantic. Her motivation was not love, but loyalty.
She thought of their terror-stricken faces as she tore into the first airship. She thought of the innocence of the children, the newness of their lives. They were too young to be caught up in a war.
She thought of her childhood spent chasing after Tenzin, trying to keep up. He was often unreachable, and she was seldom rewarded for her efforts to make him laugh. Even as a child, Tenzin had been far too serious. Now, with the lives of his children on the line, with a war whose end was nowhere in sight, Lin doubted if she would ever have the opportunity to make him laugh again.
She launched herself off the first airship and onto the second, metal hitting metal as she quickly gained her bearings. Tearing apart the metal roof was oddly therapeutic for the anxiety that had grown in the pit of her stomach. When the wires wrapped around her and electricity tore through her body, she knew her time was up. She was not going to be the hero of this tragedy, but perhaps she had bought her old friend some time, and that was enough.
When rough equalist gloves shoved her down onto her knees in front of Amon, she could vaguely sense the once-familiar vibrations of Air Temple Island beneath her. It seemed all too fitting that this island would be where her story began and ended. Open and shut, like an ancient, time-worn tragedy told far too many times.
As she closed her eyes and felt the rain fall upon her face, Lin did not once consider herself a martyr.
And never, in all the years that followed, did she believe she was worthy of the title Meelo had given her.
(a hero)
