Double Bender

Part 60

I'm afraid we have to jump ahead a couple of years, to the present day. Zuko is currently 26 and I'm currently 25, and pregnant with his second child. Geo's prediction was right. Zuko is a strong leader a wonderful father. I've been the best wife and mother I can be. Aang and Katara are engaged, Sokka and Suki have finally gotten married, and Toph is happily single. I told she'd find someone that'd catch her fancy and she said, "Not a chance." Anyway, it's a warm, sunny morning. Zuko and I are sitting on a bench watching a little girl play underneath a large statue. The statue is the tallest thing around, made out of silver, except for her eyes. They are made out of emerald stones, the color of the real woman's eyes. The statue is of a woman, a friend I knew. She's not doing anything really extraordinary, just standing, with one foot up on a rock, looking off into the horizon, like she's looking for the next adventure. The little girl comes running over to me, and I see those beautiful green eyes again. "Are we going home now, mommy?" she asks. "Yes, Geo." I say to the little girl as Zuko picks her up. "We're going home now."
Lady Tatiana J. Melin

Epilogue; Several years later
"I found him!" A little girl squeals excitedly. "He's over here!" Another girl comes running over to the first one as a little boy sticks his head out of the bushes and gives the girls an angry look. "How do you always find me?" he asks irritably. "You always pick the worst hiding spots." The first girl says, crossing her arms snarkily. "Okay," the second girl says. "I get to count this time." Suddenly, the first girl looks over the boy's shoulder, at something in the distance. "What's that?" she says, pointing. The two other children follow her gaze to a cave in side of the mountain. She suddenly takes off running towards the cave. "Wait for us!" The second girl shouts as she and the boy follow the first girl. As the children reach the cave, they find noting but a name carved over the mouth and a slab of worn out granite with the words She will be missed immensely written on it. Underneath the slab is a mound of dirt, rising up from the flat ground. "What is this place?" the first girl asks, bursting with curiosity. "It looks like a grave." The boy says, rather jumpily. "So we should probably leave it alone." The first girl doesn't listen, instead journeys deeper into the cave and looks at the granite again. "Let's get out of here! Someone's gonna get angry with us!" "Hello," a gentle voice says, making all three children jump. In front of the three children is a woman, a ghost, in a green dress praising the Earth-Kingdom, a place before their time, with brown hair flowing down her back and a mischievous yet kind smile. "I told you!" says the boy, who is now hiding behind the first girl. "Please don't be mad at us!" the second girl pleads. The first girl remains unfazed, trying to remember where she's seen this person before. The ghost smiles and laughs a little bit. "I'm not angry," she says. "It's perfectly alright. It's been quite a while since someone came to visit me." She added a very warm smile at the end. The first girl still had her face twisted in concentration, trying to put a name to the face of the woman. Suddenly, it came to her. "You're the lady from the statue!" she cried. "What?" the woman asked. "Before we were born, Fire Lord Zuko, he had a statue built, right in the middle of the town. He had it built for a lady who died in the war. That's you!" The ghost still had a very confused look. "They built a statue, for that lady, in the square!" The ghost smiled tearfully. "I didn't even know." She said quietly. "It was you!" The first girl squealed again. "Oh, what was her name?" the second girl said. "Geo!" The boy shouted, jumping up and down. The ghost laughed a little again. "That's my name," the ghost said. "Geo," she repeated it as if she'd hadn't heard it in a very long time. "My name is Toph." The second girl says. "That's Zuko." "I'm Tatiana!" The first girl said, still very excited with the thought of meeting a ghost. Now the ghost was very close to crying. "Are you okay?" The first girl asks sympathetically. "Oh, yes." The ghost answers. "It's just, those were the names of some of my closest friends. They built a statue...for me?" She said the last bit as if in a daze. "Yep." Toph says. "The new Fire Lord, Fire Lord Geo, just had the statue cleaned." Now the ghost really was crying. "They named their daughter after me." The ghost whispered. "So how did you die?" Zuko asks. "Zuko!" Tatiana snapped. "Don't be rude." Just like old times the ghost thought. "It's quite alright." The ghost says again. "I died saving my best friends." "How did it happen?" Zuko asked. Toph socked him in the arm. The ghost chuckled a little, reminiscing when their namesakes did the exact same thing. "I'll tell you." She says. "But you might want to sit down, this will take a long time." The children obediently sat down in the cave, listening. "Well," the ghost began. "It all started with an idiot with a fantastic ego and a stupid haircut, and then everything changed when this badass from the Earth-Kingdom came along..."