Gravity- Day 4

Ten year old Zuko tossed and turned on his king sized bed. He was having a nightmare. It soon became a nightly occurrence for him. He would wake up soaked in sweat and tears. Even though he was ten, Zuko would go to his mother hoping to escape his sleeping realm of torture. Tonight was no different. He had dreamt that his father had burnt him. He was trying to impress his father with his fire bending but only seemed to anger him when Azula upstaged him. Zuko was his father's shame, Azula his pride; but it all seemed the opposite for his mother, he knew that.

When he would seek for his mother's touch he would curl up on the couch with her. She would run her fingers across his hairline, down ever curve and crevasse on his face, then repeating the circuit. It would calm him. Tonight he would walk in crying asking if anybody loved him. She would reply that she loved him so very much, that he was her favorite son.

"I'm your only son." Zuko frowned, tears dried to his cheeks.

"That's right. The more reason to love you. Now, sleep my boy."

"I can't."

"Zuko, dream a better dream. You are a prince, so dream for a beautiful princess." That is what Zuko did. He fell into complete happiness as he pictured a girl with dark brown, wavy hair feeding the turtle ducks. She was a bender but not a firebender. Zuko's mother would tell him stories of two very different loves. His favorite one was about a beautiful waterbender. She loved her people very much but soon was separated from her family by war. She was taken far away by her enemy's son. Zuko would then reply with disgust at the people who took her from her family, especially her mother.

"Now Zuko, there's more to the story." The enemy's son was named Hajime; Hajime was also a prince. As the waterbender and Hajime traveled back to the palace they fell in love. Soon Hajime became so in love he let her free, doing so he betrayed his father, and his people. In that, he gave up his place for the throne.

"Why would he do that?"

"Because sometimes you love someone so much you would do anything for them."

"Even it meant dying?"

"Yes."

Zuko wondered what it would feel like to fall in love with someone so much you would die for them. Could he ever feel like that?

So Zuko dreamt about a waterbender. Her skin was tan, her eyes blue. To Zuko she was the most beautiful waterbender. She was his princess. So when Zuko woke up in cold sweats, face wet with tears he would dream that he would make that waterbender his.