Like how Izumi was sent by Zuko every summer before she became Fire Lord, to work at the Jasmine Dragon in Ba Sing Se's Middle Ring, Iroh and Ursa were ordered by their Fire Lord Mother to do the same, only today, the tea shop was rented out for a private celebration for the victory and freedom of The United Republic of Nations.
Masaru and Tenzin were playing pai sho.
Kang and Meelo were making Pokey chase little marbles around the room. HuiFan and Ursa were bonding over some crass teenagers they encountered that afternoon in the market place. Jiexue and Xiaoyu were sitting on a two-person chair napping in the corner. Wing and Wei were talking to Huan and HungJian at one table. Kya and Izumi sat shoulder to shoulder together by the door watching everyone with smiles on their faces. Iroh, Jinora, and Ikki helped serve tea. Bumi has his foot up on a table where Suyin and Baatar we're sitting, telling them about the time he beat an earthbender in a rock throwing contest. Everyone was wearing green and white and gold colors of Earth Kingdom nobility.
"Dad! Where is mom hiding?" Jinkun asked his father from an earthen table of his own making where he sat alone with a large piece of parchment sprawled across the slab of concrete. He dipped his paintbrush in a well of black ink and continued a painting.
"I'm right here! I decided to go shopping this morning!" Lin said rushing into the quiet tea shop with four year old Rohan on her hip and a few bags on her arm.
"Mom shopping?" Jiexue asked waking up.
"Lin in anything but cold hard steel?" Suyin asked resting her chin on her fist and her elbow on the table at which she was sitting.
"Lin what on earth are you wearing?" Izumi asked, her face scrunching up in scrutiny.
Lin set Rohan down letting him run over to Meelo and Kang and twirled around in her "new clothes" that looked like no more than a couple sheets in two shades of green wrapped haphazardly around her body.
"Tenzin, what do you think of the sound of an earth acolyte?" Lin asked with an unusually playful smile on her face.
Tenzin didn't need to respond. His eyes widened in horror and his jaw dropped to the floor. Everyone else laughed.
"I'm with Tenzin; I don't like it either, Sis. Can you go put on something normal?" Masaru asked resting his forerarm on the paisho table.
Lin slipped one sheet off her shoulder and the other from her body revealing new silk robes in a light spring green and beige with mother of pearl, and obsidian accents beaded in.
"I prefer this much more," Tenzin said as she walked over and kissed him before gathering up the sheets and bags from her almost solo shopping expedition that morning to go put away in the corner..
"Mom! You three!" Jinkun yelled in frustration pointing at Iroh, Jinora and Ikki. "Stop moving! I'm trying to capture the moment!"
"May I see this moment you're capturing?" Lin asked walking over to his isolated table.
"Sure, but it's a work in progress!" Jinkun replied.
Lin leaned over his earthen table and frowned. "Why am I hanging upside down like a drunken spiderfly?"
JinKun shrugged.
"Why did you draw me lightening bending?" HuiFan asked.
"And why am I metalbending?" Ursa said pointing.
"I thought it looked cooler that way. There were too many fire benders here on this side and too many earthbenders here and I had already drawn your poses and hair and clothing so I just switched your elements aaand—" JinKun replied.
"And I am NOT that wrinkly, am I?" Kya asked pointing at her meditating self in the background.
"Well I think you all look great!" Toph said from her chair across the room with her feet up in a table, one hand behind her head and the other with a cup of tea in it.
Everyone paused for a moment and then remembered Toph was blind and laughed.
"I love you, my golden rock but why don't you stick to sculpting," Lin said ruffling her middle son's hair affectionately.
"Alright," Jinkun replied standing up, walking a few paces away from his table. He kicked a block of stone out of the floor of the shop and snapped his fingers and had the entire scene and everyone in it laughing, embedded in stone, permanently happy. Jinkun beamed proudly while Huan rolled his eyes and blew a lock of green hair out of his face.
"Real sculpting comes from the soul, not what you feel with your feet!" Huan said throwing his arms up then folding them irritably.
"Let's see you do better with metal!"
"Alright, I will!" Huan replied bending all of the metal in the vicinity into a giant messy looking mass then proceeding to curl over some of the rough edges and form some times.
The two went toe to toe, Jinkun with a block of earth and Huan with a rough lump of metal while everyone gathered around to watch.
"A word please, Lin." Tenzin said quietly slipping his hand into hers and leading her out to the patio at the front of the Jasmine Dragon Tea shop.
Lin bowed her head and followed. Their strides were perfectly in time with each others', their heads both hung at the same angle as they became lost in their own thoughts in the seconds it took to reach the waist high railing.
"I don't know if you've heard, but I have resigned from the City council of Republic City," Tenzin began standing against the railing with an arm around Lin's waist.
"When did you do this?"
"This morning, while you were shopping.
"So soon after it was reformed?"
"Yes,"
"Who will take your place?"
"I think Daw can be trusted to represent the Air Nomads in Republic City."
"Are you sure? Where will you go?"
"Wherever the wind, or earth takes me," Tenzin replied turning to face her emerald green eyes. He tucked a lock of wavy grey hair behind her ear and looked at the green ribbon around her neck. "I am an air nomad by birth. It was foolish of me to take that horrible job in the first place. It tied me down for too long. It tied us down. I thought that maybe, If you were interested, we could go on a trip. We could show our children the city for a day, and then head off into the rest of the world. Just us, us and our babies."
Lin smiled. "If they want to, we will all go. They're mostly adults and now that they're free, I can't keep deciding for them."
"And if they don't want to go?"
"Then I'll come with you."
"You would leave them?"
"It is not leaving them, Tenzin. It is loving them, and learning to let go. They need to make their own destiny, and not simply follow in our shadows. I will not have them making the same mistakes as us. We were blinded by these- unreasonable notions of duty and obligation. And it put us in a life of hurt and misery."
"You're right," Tenzin said looking away from her.
Lin reached up and circled his ear affectionately with her index finger.
"I'm always right," she whispered in his ear with a smirk.
He turned and swept her up into his arms and sat her on the railing, snaking one arm around her gentle sloping waist with the other wrapping around the back of her neck as his lips found hers again.
"We should have eloped before we became tied to that damned city!" Tenzin whispered before closing the gap between them again.
"Do you use your bending to purposefully take my breath away when we kiss so that I am too weak and light headed to resist?" Lin asked turning away from Tenzin to catch her breath.
"Maybe," he replied cupping her face with his left hand, covering her scars and turning her to face him again. "Lin Beifong, will you marry me again? Not just formally, but in a ceremony and everything?"
"I thought you disliked ceremonies," Lin replied placing her hand slowly over his. "I remember how upset you were when Katara invited half of the water tribe, and all of the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom nobility to your wedding with Pema."
"No, don't mention her. Not now. Our wedding won't be like that. Just our family and friends," Tenzin said glancing back into the tea shop where JinKun sat casually on a stone he bent out of the ground beside his realistic sculpture watching Huan painstakingly slowly create some incredibly abstract masterpiece of his own.
"I don't know, Tenzin. We're older now, more aware and mature. Do we really need a ceremony to validate our love for each other? Are our children not evidence enough?" Lin asked.
"They are for you and me, I just thought... this will sound silly, but if the world knew we were together. We would all be safer-"
"What difference does it make?"
"I don't know? There is something very menacing about having a Beifong officially part of the family," Tenzin said resting his chin on top of her head, smoothing her wavy hair with his hand as he held her.
Lin laughed. "You want to use my name as deterrent to protect our family?"
"I know it sounds silly."
"No, Tenzin, it doesn't. It is ingenious really. I love you and I always have. I'd do anything for you. For the longest time, I thought that was enough, to sustain us, but you're right. Every enemy that arises seems to think that the air nomads are weak because of their numbers, and that you and your children would be easy targets. Easy hostages to hold for ransom. They think you are alone in a fight. Maybe it would be good if we were together. To prove the world that we are united, if that little coalition army wasn't enough." Lin laughed again. She leaned her head on his shoulder. "I would gladly marry you again. But I am still not sold on having a ceremony."
"No worries, we can talk about it later. Now that we have all the time in the world, I can be more stubborn with my favorite earthbender." Tenzin said with both hands on her waist and her arms around his neck. He tilted her chin up with his head to kiss her neck then slid one hand lower on her back before.
"AUNT LIN! UNCLE SARU JUST PROPOSED TO AUNT ZUMI!" Ikki yelled running out onto the patio startling Lin and Tenzin. They broke apart and Lin slid off the railing and onto her feet again, brushing off the skirts of her new robes, turning away slightly.
"Uhhhhh... was I interrupting something?" Ikki asked with a curious gaze.
"SO WHEN WILL YOU GUYS GET MARRIED?!" Kang asked running out after Ikki.
"Wait, WHAT?!" Lin shrieked abandoning Tenzin and two of the airbender children, marching back inside to find the Fire Lord entangled in the arms of her long lost brother almost as tightly as Lin was in Tenzin's just seconds before.
"Zumi, how DARE YOU!" Lin yelled hurling a giant brick at the Fire Lord. Izumi fired back with a twisting ball of blue and red fire knocking Lin out of the tea shop entirely as Kya snatched Rohan up and rolled out of the way.
"HEY! If you guys are going to fight, take it outside!" Iroh yelled setting down his tray.
"We were just on our way!" Izumi said walking outside.
"I just got him back and you steal him away?!" Lin demanded.
"Don't be too mad at me, Linny. I tried to get him to meet you years ago, but he was afraid. Now that we will be married, we can all visit at least twice a month!" Izumi said standing on the patio of the tea shop.
"Maybe I don't want to see all of you. Maybe I just wanted to see Saru!"
"Then I will make him come at least twice a month. Lin, it is not like you're losing him to me!" Izumi said with her hands up.
"It's alright Lin. Remember if you love someone, you'll let them go and do and be what they want to be," Tenzin reminded Lin as he locked his arms around both of hers and her body, subconsciously nending the air in her lungs to calm her enraged breathing. "If Masaru loves Izumi, then..."
"I know. I shouldn't be mad at Izumi. We don't get to chose who we love," Lin said looking up at him and then back at Izumi.
Tenzin felt her breathing steady, and let go, finally.
"So Tenzin, looks like we'll be brothers of a sort shortly," Masaru said jovially extending a hand to his recent pai sho opponent.
Tenzin glanced over at Lin who was chatting now with Kya and Suyin.
"I guess so," he said smiling at his temperamental, yet steadfast lady.
"Good luck with her!" Masaru said shaking Tenzin's hand.
Tenzin felt Masaru's grip tighten and grow hot. "But don't ever hurt her again, or I won't feel sorry about burning you to death!"
Tenzin nodded. Masaru let go. Tenzin's hand was red and hot to the touch but not hot enough to inflict surface burns on the flesh.
"Hey Dad!" Jinora called running out of the tea shop.
"Dad! How far is the wall that separates the middle ring and the lower ring?" Ikki asked rapidly?
"Or the middle ring from the other?" Kang added.
"How long do you think it will take us to ride the length of it on an air scooters?" Meelo added.
"Who do you think would win?" Xiaoyu chimed in.
"Think? I KNOW I will win!" Jiexue said arrogantly with a hand on her hip, flicking the other off her chin.
"But I am the master!" Jinora yelled.
"But my tornado is bigger AND better than yours!" Jiexue replied snarling at her little sister who growled right back, tiptoeing to stand taller.
"Enough!" Tenzin yelled rubbing his temples before picking up Rohan who stumbled over to him after Aunt Kya released him. "Lin!" Tenzin called. "Would you like to accompany me to the wall? Apparently we need to have an air scooter race to settle a dispute."
"I'd be glad to." Lin replied.
"Cousin Opal! You should come race too!" Ikki and Kang yelled running over to Opal as she emerged from the tea shop with a sullen Huan.
"What are we racing?" Opal asked.
"AIR SCOOTERS!" Meelo, Ikki, and Kang yelled jumping up in the air.
"Along the top of a wall of Ba Sing Se!"
They decided to migrate as a massive herd towards the wall that separated the middle from the upper ring when three Earth Kingdom Palace guards approach them, Suyin specifically.
"Your majesty, we regret to inform you that a letter has arrived from Republic City that requires your immediate attention," the guards said. Suyin frowned and glanced back at Lin, Tenzin, Izumi and Masaru who had also paused to see what was happening.
"I'll go. "Zumzu, Lin, could you help keep track of-"
"Of course! Go. Your nation needs you!" Izumi said waving her off. Suyin left with the guards.
Izumi turned then to Lin. "So when IS your wedding ceremony?" Izumi asked. Lin punched the Fire Lord with enough force to nearly knock her and Masaru over.
"Woah! What was that for?" Masaru asked stabilizing himself with a blast of fire from his right hand to prop him and Izumi upright again as they walked.
"That is how she shows affection," Izumi replied casually rubbing her sore arm.
"I am glad it is a result of upbringing and not something hereditary," Masaru said cocking his head at Lin who simply gazed forward again, pretending to ignore him and Izumi. "Good luck with her Tenzin!" Masaru called.
"Spirits! Have a little faith! I KNOW Lin! I have dealt with her antics before and I still love her!" Tenzin exclaimed.
Masaru and Izumi laughed. Just then they both fell with a yell and a shriek and everyone stopped and turned to see what happened.
"Did someone trip over their own feet?!" Lin asked turning to face them with a wicked smile on her face, her hand in Tenzin's as they both snickered.
"Can't you guys play nicely for once?!" Iroh asked rushing to help his mother off the ground.
Lin laughed even harder.
'You could have hurt my mother!" Ursa yelled.
"Ursa, Iroh, listen to me, this is nothing!" Izumi said standing up and brushing her green earth kingdom robes off.
"You should have seen us in our prime," Kya said with folded arms and a smirk on her face.
"We've been in Ba Sing Se what, two days now? The entire upper ring. and half of the middle ring would have been DESTROYED by now!" Bumi exclaimed.
"Really?" Huifan asked with great interest.
'Oh yeah! And Lin's Mama was so rich that she just payed off half the city for the repairs, and the landowners to keep quiet and allow our little squabbles to destroy everything."
"That must have been fun!" Wing yelled pumping his fists.
"It was!" Lin confirmed glancing sideways between Kya and Izumi.
"So can we destroy half the city?" Hungjian asked.
"NO! Unless you want me to bury you alive," Lin replied seriously.
"Come on now, we have an air scooter race to witness!" Tenzin said ushering the children forward again.
Lin jogged a few steps ahead to fall in line with her lover once again, slipping her fingers between his, watching their children walk/skip along towards the wall as the sun just began to fall in the sky.
AND THAT IS A WRAP! LIVES FORGOTTEN IS FINALLY COMPLETED! THANKS TO ANONYMOUS GUEST, DAIKOTA-AKIRA, JXJXJX, THEBEIFONGCLAN, RIKU9997, THE BOOK MANAGER, AND STEFANOBI FOR YOUR REVIEWS, AND TO ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO FAVORITED, FOLLOWED, OR JUST READ THE STORY! I HOPE IT WASN'T TOO CHOPPY/INCOHERENT AS I WENT THROUGH A BUNCH OF WRITING BURSTS AND BREAKS AND OCCASIONALLY FORGOT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER AS I WROTE THE NEXT. I AM SORRY FOR ALL OF THE TYPOS AND MISSPELLINGS (i can get really excited to get ideas out of my head and then get lazy to proofread which I know is really bad and something I really have to work on). THE STORY TOOK TURNS I DIDN'T REALLY EXPECT (like having a rated M chapter) BUT WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE (for me)! I HOPE YOU LIKED IT! LEAVE YOUR FINAL IMPRESSIONS, THOUGHTS, OPINIONS IN THE COMMENTS/REVIEW SECTION! PLEASE!
If you liked this, some related works that I have written include:
In Isolation (Incomplete) - a prequel to this
Justice for Kuvira (Complete) - the thing that I wrote that kind of was supposed to be or inspired 'Lives Forgotten"... (Huifan is like a modified Kuvira that is a little more feminine, prettier, stronger, but just as clever and determined and HUifan is supposed to look like young Katara with green eyes and a different hair style.)
IF YOU LIKE FIRELORD IZUMI AS MUCH AS I DO:
Finally, We Can Speak (Complete)- a oneshot in whichthe Gaang's kids talk on a private beach.
(COMING SOON) The Beach - a oneshot in which the Gaang's kids go on a forced vacation during the Yakone Trial (timeline is modified a bit so the kids are older)
Because Bending is a Burden (my favorite but incomplete) - Izumi comes to Republic City for the first time in a long time with a warning.
Flaming Moon Badgers (in progress) - Lin, Kya, and Izumi as one of the original pro-bending teams back when it was underground and frowned upon by many.
IF YOU LIKE LIN BEIFONG AS MUCH AS I DO:
Everything. Lin Beifong is my HERO.
You Will be Both (complete) - Lin's tragic childhood and several events that contributed to how and why she became Chief Grumpy Pants
Apocalyptic Fury (complete)- Dai Li try to recruit Lin and Toph's reaction to it happening.
Flaming Moon Badgers (in progress)- Lin, Kya, and Izumi as one of the original pro-bending teams back when it was underground and frowned upon by many.