Part 2/3

Part 1 is Chapter 3 - mark my soul

Prompt: Day 9-Scars

AN: I own nothing you recognize from your tv screens. Enjoy!

For the first thirteen years of his life, the mark on his chest was the part of himself that held the most importance.

His facial features? Sure, many people said he looked like his father, and that made him feel prideful. Until his father started making Mom cry. Until his father started saying cruel words about Uncle. Until his father started pressuring Azula so much she became meaner and stopped spending time with him.

His personality? It was nice enough, he supposed, since everyone said he acted just as gentle and kind as his mother. But that was before his mother left him in the middle of the night. Of course she had; with her sweet disposition, she couldn't flourish in a home as cold and unforgiving as the Fire Nation palace. And if he acted so much like his mother - that didn't bode well for him.

His firebending? Truly unworthy of mention.

His swordsmanship? A talent, yes, but also a constant source of whispered mockery from his father and nobles who saw it as a weakness to rely on anything besides the power ingrained in one by Agni.

But his mark? Its presence brought him a strange reassurance, as did the knowledge of the reason it was there.

"Lu Ten?"

"Yes, Zuko?"

"I cut myself. It hurts." The Fire Nation's Crown Prince rushed to his six-year-old brother's side and held his shoulders.

"Where? What happened? Were you playing with my swords again?" Zuko shook his head quickly.

"No! Well, not today, I played with them yesterday, but I didn't see the cut yesterday. But it's here now. See?" He unclasped the collar of his robe and pulled it down so the top of his chest showed.

Right above his heart was a small scar. It was jagged and shaped like a lightning bolt. Lu Ten frowned.

"Aunt Ursa never told you?"

"Told me what, Lu?"

Lu Ten debated within himself if he should be the one to tell Zuko, but he had done a lot of research on this topic ever since his aunt had told him about it, and he wanted to share. He sat on the ground and pulled his cousin into his lap.

"Well, that's not a cut. It's something we call the 'blessed heart's mark.'"

"What's that?"

"It's something you were born with. You know, I was there when you were born and I saw the mark. Everyone knows it's there. I dunno why no one ever told you what it means."

"But what is it, Lu Ten? Tell me!"

The older boy chuckled at the impatience coloring Zuko's voice. "Okay, okay. What it means is that you have a soulmate."

"A what?"

"A soulmate is someone who completes you. They care about you and they love you and it's like finding the energy that perfectly matches your own." Zuko looked at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"Does everyone have one? Do you have one? What about Azula? Are Mom and Father soulmates? Did Uncle have a soulmate?"

Lu Ten's eyes widened with each question. "Um, I'm not sure. I mean, some books say that everyone has a soulmate. Other books say only a few people have perfect soulmates. I don't know if I or Azula have one, and maybe your parents are soulmates? I don't really know. Mom and Dad definitely acted like they were." Despite his age, Zuko had the emotional intelligence to know that his brother's wistful look meant he should hold onto his questions for now.

After a few moments of silence, Lu Ten shook his head and continued to speak. "But that's why you're so lucky, Zuko. The universe has already promised you that you have a soulmate. And you wanna know the coolest part?" Zuko bounced eagerly. "They were already your soulmate before."

"Before what?"

"Before this life. You have been born before. You looked different. And your name was different too, probably. But your soul is just born again and again. And in your last birth, you had a soulmate. A special connection with another soul. That's the same soul you will find in this life."

Zuko leaned forward, always ready for a challenge.

"What do I have to do to find them?"

"I haven't read that far. I don't know. But they're always gonna be there. They're always going to be your soulmate. So don't worry about missing them or anything, okay?" He wasn't comforted - he wanted to go out into the city this very moment and find his soulmate. But that had no chance of happening, so he nodded reluctantly.

The one question Lu Ten had never answered was why the scar hurt. It didn't hurt all the time, only when he rubbed the area where it laid.

As soon as he touched the spot, pain would shoot through his chest. The fear and anger that would follow were blinding and left him flushed every time. A strip of blue cloth, bright as a cloudless sky, would flash in front of him, and labored breathing would echo in his ears.

He never talked about his mark or visions with anyone. Of course, everyone knew it existed, but what was the point in discussing it? He was surrounded by people who thought love was for the weak.

He had no way of knowing that kneeling in front of Father would result in a new scar. Before today, he had always felt disassociated from the pain, fear, and anger he felt when he touched the blessed heart's mark. But now, he understood it all too well.

You will learn respect. And suffering will be your teacher.

And suffer he did.

The scar his father had bestowed upon him was there as a lesson. It was a constant reminder of his disrespect, his lacking, his failure, all his shortcomings. And so it became the new most important part of himself.

Every time he faced himself in the mirror or saw his reflection in the ocean, his eyes would trace the troughs and crests of his scar. At the merest mention of a face or the word 'respect', his hand would travel to the mark shaped like a comet. For so many years he had rubbed the lightning-shaped mark on his chest absentmindedly, but for all the attention it didn't receive nowadays, it may as well have disappeared.

As thoughts of the Avatar invaded every waking and sleeping moment of his life, questions about who his soulmate was and when he would find them receded into the furthest corners of his mind.

Until he sees her eyes. He's been adrift for three years now, and that's likely the only reason he can tell that her irises are not the color of the ocean. They are too bright, too glowing - they don't encompass the darkest depths of the sea that call out to him in his bleakest moments.

But they do remind him of simpler times, of his childhood, of his visions, of the energy that matches his.

And this nostalgia returns a hundredfold when he picks up her necklace. He presses down on the blessed heart's mark to check, and sure enough, the ribbon in his hands matches the fabric in his vision perfectly. His fingers curl around the pendant as he grits his teeth and a battle wages in his head.

Is he so lonely, so desperate that he's losing his mind? Why does he feel this urge to throw everything he's worked for to the wayside just to chase down his soulmate, whoever they may be, even if it's not this amateur waterbender?

He has a task set for him, very clear guidelines and requirements that he must meet to go home. Once he returns home, he decides, he can worry about his soulmate all he wants.

Either he was wrong about the color of her eyes or she's changed. Maybe it's a bit of both; after all, he saw her from quite the distance, and he knows firsthand that the waterbender standing in front of him, backed by green crystals, is not the same hopeful, naive girl he saw at the South Pole. It's not even the same warrior he met at the North Pole.

No, this girl was hurling her spite at him five minutes ago and is now telling him that the matter of healing his scar is important.

When her fingertips run over the bottom of his scar, when her thumb brushes his lips, when she looks at him with wide eyes that now hold the blue of his visions and the blue of ocean fathoms, he closes his eyes reverentially. It's the only way he can stop himself from asking her if she too has the blessed heart's mark.

He doesn't feel as guilty for wondering about that as he thought he would. She's not the enemy anymore, because he's no longer a part of this war.

But then the wall behind her crumbles.

He never promised her anything. That means he didn't betray her.

So why is it that the pain that came with touching the mark has increased exponentially? Why is it that every time he presses his mark, it's now her face that imprints itself on his eyelids?

Her hurt face as she shouts, "I thought you'd changed!"

(He has.)

Is it because she's his soulmate?

For both her sake and his own, he prays to Agni she is not.

AN: Thank you to everyone who has left read/favorited/followed for this short three-parter! last part is coming soon :)

I'd love to hear what you guys thought of this so leave a comment or message me on tumblr (thebluesunflower44)!