A/N: Ah, I know Mako doesn't have golden eyes but I couldn't resist. Allow me this one discrepancy, won't you? ^_^ He just looks prettier that way, in my opinion xD

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender, Legend of Korra, or even James Cameron's Avatar for that matter.

Chapter Seven: Father's Dream

He ran; chest heaving, face and arms covered in scratches from the fight, muscles screaming for rest. The little boy, thin and quite tall for his age, didn't stop until he reached Chin River which wound its way down the field, serene and beautiful.

The boy crouched down by the river's edge, careful not to fall in. He scooped cool water with his cupped hands and splashed his face, relishing the sharp, refreshing feeling. Scooping up more water, he drank some before proceeding to wash his arms of dirt and red stains. The blood wasn't his. The boy could still see the other child fall back at his furious punch, spinning away and hitting the ground, nose gushing blood everywhere.

That was when the boy had fled, not because he was afraid of blood or scared that he was in big trouble but because he had never hit another person before, not even his younger brother when he was at his most annoying. The boy prided himself in keeping his temper in check, something his father had always been proud of.

Suddenly, there were footsteps behind him, heavy ones. It was probably an adult. The child's parent, perhaps? Had they found the perpetrator so quickly? Would they punish him harshly for breaking their son's nose?

"Mako?" A voice called behind him.

Mako turned around to find his father standing there. His father was dressed in his old overalls. He might have passed for a real country farmer if it hadn't been for the sharp intellect burning clearly in his amber eyes; the eyes of a man who, despite living in one of the most rural areas of the Earth Kingdom, still wrote papers and knew more than anyone in the village about machines.

To young Mako, his father had always been an inspiration. But now, standing in front of him with his bangs wet with water and droplets dripping from his fingertips, he felt small, ashamed, not only of himself but also the man in front of him. Mako couldn't even meet his father's eyes, those brilliant gold eyes he himself had inherited.

"Mako, son, are you okay?" his father's voice was tentative, cautious. No doubt he had heard about the fight from the villagers. Mako didn't say anything, afraid he might start crying.

"Son, are you okay?" his father repeated, coming a step closer. Again, Mako did not answer.

Mako's father walked over, knelt in front of him and gave him a hug. Mako fought back tears as he hugged his father back, grateful for the embrace that was his safe haven, his birthright, his father.

"Tell me what happened, son," his father said, pulling away and gently holding the boy's face in his hands. "What happened?"

"He-" Mako started but the words caught in his throat, unwilling to part with his anger. "He-"

"Go ahead, Mako. What did the boy say to you?"

"He said…"

Fire Nation scum! You and your dad are pilfering scoundrels! Sons of the tyrant Ozai!

"He made fun of my height," Mako mumbled, compensating with a half-truth. The boys had indeed commented on Mako's unusually tall figure though it had by no means been the crux of the row.

His father however, nodded and didn't ask any more questions. Instead he took his sons hand and made their way back to the village. The rush of river water slowly died away behind him and Mako found himself squeezing his father's hand as though afraid it would disappear.

As they neared the village, his father spoke, a light, casual voice he used to tell bedtime stories.

"When I was your age, Mako, I dreamed of being the world's greatest journalist. I still dream about it, actually," he said. "Of course, not everyone approved of my dream. Even my own parents wanted me to go into politics so I could be a big important figure of the Fire Nation council and whatnot. I never wanted that though. I kept telling everyone I wanted to write and everyone would laugh and say how pointless and useless my dreams were. People would mock my writing and I ended up throwing a couple of punches myself. But the important thing is, Mako, even though I'm not a famous journalist right now, I still know what I want to do in life and I don't let anyone tell me what I am."

Mako nodded, not entirely sure where his father was going with this.

"I know it's hard when people say negative things about what you care about, Mako, but don't ever let anyone get you down," his father stressed, squeezing Mako's hand gently. And then, almost as an afterthought, he said, more to himself than Mako, "What I wouldn't give to be a journalist right now…"

Mako.

Mako!

MAKO!

Mako felt something slap him hard across his face. His eyes flew open, tearing up from the pain. Covering the stinging cheek with one hand, he rolled over onto his side and found himself staring into someone's knees.

"Thank Agni! I thought you were dead!"

Mako looked up to see who had spoken. The owner of the knee was none other than Iriah, her short black hair covered with a hand towel, her forehead glistening with sweat. She had obviously been the one to slap him but Mako wondered just how long she'd been slapping him if she was sweating so profusely. How long had he been out?

"Wha- what happened?" Mako groaned, trying to lift his head and failing. There was a severe throbbing at the back of his head, a stinging, dull pain he suspected to be bleeding. In vague snippets as his brain started retrieving his last memories, he recalled the crack of something hard- wood? Metal?- against his skull, excruciating pain, and sudden blackness. Someone had attacked him.

"I am so, so sorry!" Iriah was saying, as Mako sifted through blurry recollections. "I… I thought you were a burglar, I swear! Oh, man… I really shouldn't have hit you so hard. You're lucky I didn't crack your skull-"

"Excuse me?" Mako did manage to sit up this time but to his immediate regret, he nearly retched all over the floor as the blood in his head threatened to explode from within and the room spun around him dizzyingly like a kaleidoscope of bland, dark colors.

"I didn't know it was you, I swear!" Iriah insisted, helping him onto her bed. He collapsed there, head buried into the pillow, swearing under his breath. "I just got here and someone was going through my stuff so- what were you doing anyways? But yeah, hitting you this hard was… oh, man…"

It felt like hours before the nausea and headache subsided. Iriah told him that the blow to his head - she refused to mention what she had hit him with – had been glancing enough that it hadn't broken any skin. Instead it had raised a bump the size of a serpent-quail's egg, something Iriah helpfully mentioned wouldn't go down for at least two weeks. She then told him to rest for the remainder of the work day, assuring him straight away that his paycheck wouldn't suffer.

After downing two cups of water, Mako lay back down on the bed, feeling better but tired. He didn't blame Iriah since he had been snooping through her stuff though he said that he'd only been looking for a rag. He also told her about the grumpy, broad-nosed clown he had bumped into and his assumption that this caravan car belonged to him.

"Oh, I should've known. That clown's name is Kai-ru. Right pain in the neck and he's not even mastered unicycling yet," Iriah scoffed disgustedly when Mako had finished explaining. "And yet the creep has the nerve to shove around everyone and anyone who he thinks he can bully. It's not your fault, Mako. He probably wanted you to get the place wrong so you'd get in trouble somehow. I know for a fact he doesn't do much with hygiene."

There was a slight pause before Iriah asked another question.

"Hey, Mako, where'd you get that sparring uniform?" she asked. Mako glanced at his arm before remembering that he had changed clothes before starting work.

"Oh, yeah. I got soaked in the rain coming here so Bing Su gave me this to wear. Why, does it belong to someone?"

"No, it's just… well, I was curious, was all," Iriah said, not quite meeting his gaze.

They were both silent for a while. Mako turned his head to a clock mounted on the wall. There was only about an hour left until his shift ended and he felt like a cheat lying there while Bolin was probably working- for no pay, at that. His head was feeling a lot better now, well enough to work and, suddenly, he felt something clutched in his hand.

"Hey, Iriah…" Mako began, sitting up slowly. "Um… what do you keep in that bottom drawer?"

Iriah looked slightly taken aback but studied him carefully instead of telling him to mind his own business. Mako stared back, his golden eyes locking with her brown ones. They stayed like that for a few moments before Iriah began to speak.

"You're descended from royalty, I see," she said matter-of-factly as though Mako's ancestry was something they had been discussing for the last twenty minutes.

"I'm not sure. Maybe," Mako replied.

"I've traveled a lot in recent years, Mako," Iriah said. "And I've come across golden eyes only twice. One is you of course. The other was in the presence of Princess Ursa on her eleventh birthday just last year."

Without waiting for Mako's answer - though admittedly he had none – Iriah got up from the edge of the bed and walked over to the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled it open. Mako watched in silence as Iriah brought over the neat stacks of newspaper clippings, placing it on the bed before him. She spread the clippings out for him.

Mako saw that most of the clippings had reoccurring keywords, each of them circled with red ink, probably by Iriah herself.

'Anti-bending Insurgency Rises'… 'Equalists Stike Again'… 'Antibending protests continue'…. 'Mayor under pressure for anti-bending terrorism'….

Mako folded the crumpled article in his hand and placed it next to the others, stunned beyond words at what he was seeing. He reread the title of his father's article and suddenly realized what he was seeing.

The date was March 31st and Kenji's last letter had arrived in the first week of February. Could it be that he was alive, that his father was actually safe? But then, why hadn't he contacted the family? What did all this have to with these Equalists or Anti-benders or whatever?

Mako stared at Iriah who was observing him quietly, almost sadly. He held up his father's article and, trying to keep his voice level as possible, said, "My father wrote this. Do you know- Does this -"

The air seemed to leave his lungs as slowly Iriah shook her head, her brown eyes filling with pity and sorrow.

"That article was published two months after the reporter - your father - was reportedly kidnapped by the Equalists," Iriah said, unable to meet his eyes. "The authorities... consider him to be dead. I'm sorry, Mako."

Review Please? :D