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Rain

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[POV: Lieutenant]

He'd vanished. After a meeting with Hiroshi Sato around three o'clock, my leader had gone into retreat. I looked everywhere for him, asking around to see if anyone knew where he was. I couldn't find him. Then a brother mentioned the rooftop, finally putting an end to my search. "He's been up there for hours," he said, "I don't know what he's doing." I thanked him and headed straight for the staircase that lead outside.

I saw him standing in the rain. Amon was contemplating the city, as though he were seeing it for the first time. Or as though he knew its most intricate details. His hood was down and I couldn't see the strap of his mask. His clothes were drenched, water drops slowly falling off his tunic and armour like they had all the time in the world. I stared at the back of his naked head, not yet ready to speak.

"So you've found me, Lieutenant," he said, breaking the steady sequence of the rain.
I stepped forward.
"You disappeared. I was wondering where you'd gone," I replied.
"Forgive me. I needed some time alone."
He looked up at the sky and then wiped his face with both his hands.
"I spoke with Hiroshi Sato today," he said. "Amongst other things, he updated me on the latest rumours that are currently circulating throughout the city. In particular, the rumours about me. All ridiculous, shameless slander. But one of them captured my special attention."
"Tell me."
"Some people -- obviously anti-equalists -- have come up with a new theory about me. According to them, I am secretly a bender."
"Nothing new about that." I said, "It's something we've heard before."
"Let me finish. According to these people, I am not only a hypocrite, but also a liar. My painful past is a complete fabrication, used for the sole purpose of gaining sympathy. And my scars are nothing more than a second-rate paint job that needs only a little water to be erased." He chuckled. "Imagine that."
I felt the vein on the side of my head throbbing with anger.
"How dare they? How dare they say such things about you?" I said, not finding any humour in the matter.
"I am not offended, Lieutenant, and neither should you. Such a ludicrous rumour only reveals how desperate they've grown."
"But for them to say that you're a fraud! It is too much to take."
"As the leader of a revolution, I am to expect calumny and must not feel insulted by it. No, what truly saddens me in this whole affair is that I am being denied recognition of my suffering. There is nothing worse in this world. Imagine falling off this building and surviving the crash. You lie on the street for days with your bones broken, waiting. Then, by some miracle, you recover and you walk away. You tell people what happened to you, but nobody believes you. They pat you on the back and say it never happened. But the suffering was real, you know it, you've felt it. You've lived with it for so long and it once made you its slave. But nobody believes it. You are like a madman to them, and perhaps even to yourself. That is what it feels like to be denied your suffering, Lieutenant."
"Is... Is that why you're here, Amon?"
"No."
"Then..."
"I am here because I wanted to put their theory to the test. What if they were right? I hoped that perhaps my life as I know it had been only a nightmare, that it never really happened at all. I let the rain lick my face, so that it might cleanse the scars some people think are only paint."
He turned around.
"But as you can see, nothing's changed."
His scars. I'd seen them before, but each time had felt like an violation of his privacy. They reached out diagonally across his face, stopping deep into his hairline. Part of his teeth were showing, revealing the normally hidden existence of the skeleton lying underneath the human flesh...
I immediately looked down, without bowing my head. No, I couldn't keep staring at him. I had no right to analyze his mutilated face. No right to see it again.
"How selfish and weak of me, was it not, Lieutenant? To hope that it had all been a dream and that I'd grown up a different man," he said.
I risked a glance and saw Amon picking up his mask, which he'd left at his feet. He put it back on and pulled the hood over his head. Then he walked towards me and put his hand on my shoulder.
"No matter. Come, old friend. I think it is time we went back inside. Now you're soaked, too."
I hadn't even noticed. I raised my hands and gawked at my wet gloves. I felt a shiver go down my spine. But I didn't budge. An old question had insinuated itself back into my head. A question I'd always wanted to ask him. A question that had finally found the appropriate moment to be submitted.
"Sir," I said. "As you know, certain water benders are capable of healing. Suppose there was a bender who could heal your scars? Suppose it were possible. Would you do it?"
He removed his hand and looked me straight in the eyes.
"Never," he said. "The scars helped shape the man I am today. This is who I am, and I've accepted it a long time ago. As I said, it was weak and selfish of me to let myself drift into fantasies about my past being a dream. I am not perfect, Lieutenant. The spirits know it. But I only hope they let me die with my scars."
My leader walked passed me and went back inside. I stood there in the rain for a little while longer, his last sentence still echoing through my mind, but finding myself unable to understand the meaning of it.




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pheleon's avatar
Amazing! You already told me about the scene, but reading it is an experience into itself. I love the slight jabs you make at canon. In a way, I'm now glad that canon spiralled into that abomination cuz otherwise, it might have not inspired you to write this! And the depth of emotion that you capture...I doubt Bryke would have matched up to it.