Sokkla Month Day 6: Holding Hands
Her hand felt different, small, almost fragile in his.
Warm, as expected of a firebender. Even on the coldest of winters, she didn't need gloves. A skilled firebender wouldn't get frostbite dum-dum. Then again, she typically was hungrier than usual during the winter months. Must be the higher than normal expenditure of heat to her extremities.
Also, he noted, her hands were rough, callused over when it should have been soft and supple, as befitting a princess of the most powerful nation in the world. Yet there it was, a byproduct of the harsh training regime she was subject to as soon as it was revealed she was a wielder of the flame.
If anything, that hers burned hotter and more intense than her brother made her the perfect tool to execute the will of her father, a flaming precise scalpel compared to her brother's more imprecise and brutish application of the flame. When asked, she shrugged, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Leading him by the hand, she took him to a private beach area near their island residence and sat him down. Her hands clasping his as she laid it down between them, she spoke of her father's harsh training regimen that rewarded a whole day's labour with nothing more than some cold words of critique, with not even a hint of praise in them.
To strengthen her, he forbade the use of soothing lotions and oils to salve her burns. That night, she whimpered herself to sleep, the palms and the fingertips blistered and red, sensitive to even the lightest touch. As she continued her story, she paused and faltered, her long suppressed emotions spilling forth, the tears she could not shed as a child now forming a puddle on the sand.
Letting go of hers, she thought he was ashamed, only to find his hands on her back and head as he pulled her into his chest, his left hand rubbing small circles on her back. Pulling free of his ministrations, he thought he did something wrong when she held her hands in his and declared to the celestial bodies and the crashing seas that his hands in hers would be the only one worth holding onto.
Seeing her golden eyes glimmer so radiantly, he smiled. Thinking he was making fun of her, she moved to tear herself away when he declared that he too, wouldn't have it any other way. After all, why would he give it up for something less, not when hers fit so perfectly in his? At this, she moved to cover her face in embarrassment, that she would jump to the worst possible conclusion. Chuckling softly, he pulled her close and they slept under the twinkling stars, the crashing waves lulling them to sleep.
It was only natural then, that the last thing they ever wished for as they lay on their deathbeds, was to hold each other's one last time. After all, neither of them would have had it any other way.