"Suki is a good leader," they all say. "Suki will get us through to tomorrow. Suki will know just what to do."
Their faith in me is staggering.
"Suki will not fail," they all say.
But I am only one girl.
Sometimes, I am afraid of becoming like the Fire Nation itself. I am afraid of losing what makes me Suki, what makes me a girl trying to fight in a war to save her people and herself. I am afraid of losing my personality, you could say. Of becoming another masked suit of armor in the midst of a fight for survival.
This has not been a fight for dominance in several years. The Fire Nation lost that ticket a long time ago.
As we train and practice, we gain a little something of ourselves. We become one, for that brief moment in time when we are synchronized and perfect. We become a single entity, prepared to fight to our deaths against the Fire Nation because we know that we will not die. We gain fearlessness in our strength, and it only makes us stronger.
But then we are suddenly all separate again. We are suddenly not moving in time with one another, and we are not one entity going to fight a war we do not really hope to win. That fearlessness is gone, and the fact that it ever existed becomes a weakness.
"Face your fears," I say, "face them and become warriors. Become strong because you confront yourself. Face your fears and do not be afraid."
Why not be afraid, every once in awhile? I am afraid sometimes, certainly. I am afraid of failure, of letting down everyone who trusts in me. I am afraid of losing, of giving up all I have fought so hard to defend. I am afraid of dying, the way any child is afraid of dying. Just because I am a soldier does not mean I am not a human being. A child, nonetheless. I am merely a girl forced to grow into a woman far too fast.
I enjoy play as any child does, but I am the one who needs to restrict that play and forge it into work. I need to make an army out of my sisters and my friends, and I need to make it the best it can be. I need to say "fight" and have them ask "whom shall we fight? For how long shall we fight them?"
I need to make them into warriors.
That would be easy, I should think, but therein lies the problem: I need to make them into warriors like me. Warriors who are still human, I mean. Warriors with morals, with personalities, with emotions. Humans with things to love and things to hate. Humans who are still human, who, when given the chance, still know how to play.
If I handed you a ball, what would you do with it? Would you throw it away? Would you know what to play? Would you bounce it? Would you throw it? Would you catch it?
Would you tell me I was mad? There is a war going on, Suki, we have no time for silly things like balls.
To you I say, there is a war going on, my friend, we have no time for silly things like forgetting how to play games. We must be humans who do what normal humans beings do and who think what normal human beings think and who say what normal human beings say.
We will listen and when we receive an order, we will obey. When someone says "play," we will say "yes, let us play because it is fun."
Just don't say "fight."
