Someone mentioned that my last chapter wasn't as good as my other ones- unfortunately, said person did not mention why, or how I could improve. Therefore, I am left with no other choice than to publish another chapter and hope it is better.
Of course, I'm always grateful for reviews, but please explain your comments.
Song's never thought of herself as an aggressive person. She'd been half-wild once, according to her mother, a real tomboy who'd loved climbing roofs and had to be forced to learn the herblore her family was known for. And then the Firebender caught her alone in the streets and—her mother always stops there.
Song doesn't remember much about that night, only heat and pain and the red scarring of the legs she'd previously prized as her gateway to freedom. Even at nine years old, when she woke up in her bedroom and saw the damage, she knew she'd never run again.
But it was ok, she told herself, because now that she'd experienced pain, she was eager to help heal it. She would become a healer just like her mother and help other girls and boys who'd be able to emerge from their bedrooms whole and able to run free.
It was enough, until she met the boy with an outer scar over one eye and a much more terrible inner scar shining in the other.
For once, she didn't help her mom heal the Uncle, didn't stand by as her position as the nurse required. Instead, she spent the time watching the boy—Lee, his uncle called him, but she suspected he had a different name. Lee was too ordinary, and this boy carried himself like he was someone important.
The people of the village didn't like him. When he helped her draw water from the well, she could tell this bothered him. Still, he did nothing, though the smile she'd seen when he talked with his uncle would have done much to win over the hearts of the kind, (albeit suspicious) village women.
She's surprised at herself when she tells him so—it's something the old Song would have said, the child who vanished among scars and dashed dreams that would never come true. But he smiles at her—a bare twitch of his lips but it's there—and she finds her heart beating faster and knows it's worth it.
That night, they sit on the porch and talk about scars; or rather, she talks and hopes that by sharing her own pain she can take some of his. It's something she's done often—her mother sometimes recruits her to break emotional boundaries with difficult patients solely because of her scars—but she finds to her surprise that when he walks away, it's her that feels lighter.
When she sees him and his uncle stealing their only means of transportation, she doesn't cry out, even though she knows that half the village will hunt the two down if she asks them to. Instead, she watches, willing him to turn around and see her, wanting to glimpse some sort of explanation in his eyes.
He doesn't turn.
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Two years later she's still Song—a little older, a little sadder, a little more worldly-wise. She's old enough that men have started to depend on her as their healer, and pretty enough that they continue to come even after their wounds have faded. Her mother dies peacefully and Song cries but goes on with life.
Her village is small, but when the Avatar, aided by the Fire Nation Prince, promise to rebuild the Four Nations, even they know of it. Song does not yell or cheer or cry when she hears the news, but she does remember the boy with the scar over one eye.
The Prince is rumored to have a similar mark.
Still, life goes on. Their town grows as the Prince's trade policies are enforced, and suddenly their little town is a town no longer but a bustling marketplace. Song's little house grows, and by the time she turns twenty-one she's a well-known doctor with her own nurses to train and an entire garden of herbs.
Like everyone else, she hears rumors about the Fire-Nation Prince and the beautiful Water-Tribe girl, and then the whispers about the Water-Tribe girl and the Avatar, and soon the rumors are so convoluted that she stops listening to them altogether.
Then, one day, there's a knock on the door and she opens it to find him standing there, holding the reigns of two ostrich-horses. They're nothing like the one he stole—purebreds, with intelligent eyes and sleek coats—but he offers them to her with an apologetic look that makes is seem as if they're garbage.
Perhaps they are, because she doesn't bow, or thank him, or even take the reigns of the animals. Instead, she slaps him so hard she leaves a handprint on his face.
Then, she throws herself into his arms and kisses him—kisses him because despite the fact that everyone knows he's marrying Lady Katara or Lady Mai or Lady Toph, she loves him and wants him to know this at least before he disappears from her life again.
Instead, his arms go tight around her and she feels his tears on her cheeks—or is it her tears on his?
No, Song has never considered herself an aggressive person, but for Fire-Lord Zuko, she's glad she made the exception.