The Unknowns - 1x06, Haru's Mother
Chapter Title: Hidden (Haru's Mother, 1x06 Imprisoned)
Word Count: 632
Characters: Haru's Mother, Tyro, Haru
Genre: General
Story Summary: Unknown, unseen, often unappreciated, they all have stories. A long series of one-shots focusing on the lives of minor and semi-minor characters, episode by episode.
Warnings: None
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender is the sole property of Nickelodeon, Brian Konietzco and Michael di Martino.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 - Peace (Kanna)
Chapter 2 - In the Navy (Fire Nation Guard #1)
Chapter 3 - A Lesson in Forgiveness (Gyatso)
Chapter 4 - Masks (Koko and Suki)
Chapter 5 - Call Me Crazy (Bumi)
“Wait for me,” Tyro said, and she listened. She listened because there was nothing else she could do. When the firebenders arrived in their tiny village five years before, they set fire to everything. The woods, the buildings, their very lives. Destroying the delicate walls she’d built around her family, as if she could’ve hidden them all from the flames that smoldered just west of their shores.
Burned, and then took. That was what the Fire Nation did. They took him from her, just as they took the other earthbenders. To mine the coal that would give them power, while they left her on her doorstep, powerless and scared. No, the firebenders couldn’t earthbend. But they shattered the very earth she stood on, and left her clutching the shoulders of her son-the only thing they did not burn or take.
“Don’t bend,” she whispered to him at night. The little boy, barely thirteen, couldn’t understand what that meant. All he knew was that his father was gone, and he had the strength-the ability-to bring him back. What he didn’t know was that the Fire Nation fed on his power, growing stronger than he, engulfing and destroying just as the fire had engulfed and destroyed their village.
So she whispered silent pleas for him to remain hidden. To remain powerless, in the face of a monster. Because she was powerless, and she needed him more. Was it selfish, she’d wonder. Was it right to ask him to hide, when his father wouldn’t have? But she was busy rebuilding the walls that the Fire Nation had broken, and she didn’t have time to consider what was outside of them.
That, perhaps, she was building that wall between her and Haru.
He wouldn’t fight. Though he yearned for his father, he would stay in her shop and pretend to be weak. At the same time, he grew further from her, further from reality. Distancing himself from the lies she’d created for them both. Of course, she knew he was earthbending, sneaking away to practice the gift his father had taught him. And every time he shirked his chores in order to do so, the earth quaked below her.
It wouldn’t have lasted. Not his flights of fancy, not her pretense of a wall. They took him, just as they had taken his father, and she was once more left powerless at the door.
Waiting, now, for them both. For her to find the strength that she’d never had before, to find the power to break past her own walls. Waiting for the past, or for a future of change, or for a lie that would help her hide once more.
So she swept the earth. And waited.
Word Count: 632
Characters: Haru's Mother, Tyro, Haru
Genre: General
Story Summary: Unknown, unseen, often unappreciated, they all have stories. A long series of one-shots focusing on the lives of minor and semi-minor characters, episode by episode.
Warnings: None
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender is the sole property of Nickelodeon, Brian Konietzco and Michael di Martino.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 - Peace (Kanna)
Chapter 2 - In the Navy (Fire Nation Guard #1)
Chapter 3 - A Lesson in Forgiveness (Gyatso)
Chapter 4 - Masks (Koko and Suki)
Chapter 5 - Call Me Crazy (Bumi)
“Wait for me,” Tyro said, and she listened. She listened because there was nothing else she could do. When the firebenders arrived in their tiny village five years before, they set fire to everything. The woods, the buildings, their very lives. Destroying the delicate walls she’d built around her family, as if she could’ve hidden them all from the flames that smoldered just west of their shores.
Burned, and then took. That was what the Fire Nation did. They took him from her, just as they took the other earthbenders. To mine the coal that would give them power, while they left her on her doorstep, powerless and scared. No, the firebenders couldn’t earthbend. But they shattered the very earth she stood on, and left her clutching the shoulders of her son-the only thing they did not burn or take.
“Don’t bend,” she whispered to him at night. The little boy, barely thirteen, couldn’t understand what that meant. All he knew was that his father was gone, and he had the strength-the ability-to bring him back. What he didn’t know was that the Fire Nation fed on his power, growing stronger than he, engulfing and destroying just as the fire had engulfed and destroyed their village.
So she whispered silent pleas for him to remain hidden. To remain powerless, in the face of a monster. Because she was powerless, and she needed him more. Was it selfish, she’d wonder. Was it right to ask him to hide, when his father wouldn’t have? But she was busy rebuilding the walls that the Fire Nation had broken, and she didn’t have time to consider what was outside of them.
That, perhaps, she was building that wall between her and Haru.
He wouldn’t fight. Though he yearned for his father, he would stay in her shop and pretend to be weak. At the same time, he grew further from her, further from reality. Distancing himself from the lies she’d created for them both. Of course, she knew he was earthbending, sneaking away to practice the gift his father had taught him. And every time he shirked his chores in order to do so, the earth quaked below her.
It wouldn’t have lasted. Not his flights of fancy, not her pretense of a wall. They took him, just as they had taken his father, and she was once more left powerless at the door.
Waiting, now, for them both. For her to find the strength that she’d never had before, to find the power to break past her own walls. Waiting for the past, or for a future of change, or for a lie that would help her hide once more.
So she swept the earth. And waited.