Chapter 2- Leaving me
Father came home that night without any fish. He said that he had gone to a meeting with the earth bender. The elders had called all the strongest warriors of our village to the center tent and there they discussed many that I did not know until now. They had said something about the Fire Nation waging war with the rest of the world. Their empire was getting stronger and bigger while they talked and now the Earth Kingdom defenses needed all the help they could get. Scouts like this earth bender searched far and wide to find men suitable for troops so that they could defend the rest of the world from the fire nation. And that they would be leaving tomorrow morning.
"NO! Papa, don't go. You don't have to do this!" I cried at the table. I didn't want to lose my father, the person our family depended on so much. Some war was not going to get between this family. Not when I had just turned sixteen: the day I became a woman.
No matter what I said was going to change my father's mind; he was going to war. He said to me that night that he would rather know that me and the rest of us would be fine, than knowing that we would suffer if the Fire Nation got their way.
The next morning I watched in silence as I saw my father kiss my mother good-bye. Jin Won and little Liu hugged father for a long time until he got to me.
"Papa, you can still stay." I tried one last time. He smiled at me and said, "Sometimes we don't always get what we want. Just promise me that once I leave you will marry someone. I picked out three boys that I think you should give a chance." I looked down knowing that this would happen. My father wouldn't leave without knowing that I would be well off.
"Hey, don't do that." He tilted my head up and said gently. "No daughter of mine is going to do that. Just try... for me.?" I nodded. My father had ways for me to do things his way. "That's my girl." He hugged me and he was about to turn away when I stopped him.
"Come back home okay?" He nodded and I moved away to watch with the other widows and children as they all boarded the earth bender's ship and sailed out of the harbor. What was I thinking? My father's home coming would be a dream. My only hope of that coming true is if the Avatar would come back and saved the world again. The chances of that were slim.
I held Liu's hand as we walked back home. My father is gone now and I'll have to try and keep his final wish even if I did not like it. By my house three boys my age chatted loudly, but as I got near, they quieted down. So, these were the three boys that my father chose for me. Not bad. There was Chiin, Ling Po, and Xiao. They were probably the best husbands that a father could ask for.
Chiin was a good fisherman for his age. His father was lead fisherman next to my father. My father probably looked at his way to provide rather than love. His physical feature was not at all too pleasant. He was wide and well, I guess that was his way of surviving those harsh storms on sea. I thought of this smiling which was probably a bad idea. The boys started making confused faces at me.
Ling Po was probably not the most romantic guy around. He, like his father before him, was power hungry and conceited. Why my father chose him was a question to me. He too was a water bender, and rather strong one. I guess living with him would be pretty unbearable.
Xiao. What to say about him. He's been my childhood friend since we met penguin sliding. He grew a huge ego and thinks he's such a hot shot. Now, all the girls think of him as the greatest warrior in the entire world! Woo hoo! And I'm being real here.
At my tenth birthday, he decides that I had this disease called "cooties" and ran away from me. The next following years, he teased me at least once every week. And if that wasn't enough, while he was going to "apologize" for all that he did, he takes me out to the middle of nowhere in the sea saying that we were "all alone". Deal was that everyone our age was watching. It was Xiao's form of entertainment that he would romanticize me and then push me off the boat. I had to explain for a while why I was soaking wet when I got home. It wasn't at all that great when I realized that my sworn enemy would come waltzing up to my home, expecting the something out of me. (Take "something" any way you like it – be it my virginity or my worshiping. This guy is not getting anything out of me.)
"Heyyy Renny!" Xiao greeting me. The word "bastard" ran through my head again and again.
"Hi, Xiao." I glared at him hoping that my gaze would burn holes through his head and he'd die.
"Aw, are you still mad at me at what happened, how long was that?" He starts pouting that sick puppy dog face again.
"It was six years and yes, I am still mad." He tried his whole "oh I'm sorry" act all these years and well it wasn't going to work today or ever. My patience was already wearing thin once I saw that he was already present there. Now he talking to me in public was bad enough. One wrong word and he was going to get his ass kicked. "What do you want?"
"Your apology." I turned to him thinking about the shit that he was giving me.
"What was that again?" I ask slowly.
"Your apology woman!" SMACK. Oooh. That was gonna leave a mark.
