𝑺𝑬𝑬𝑫 𝑶𝑭 𝑰𝑪𝑯𝑶𝑹 •𝒃𝒙𝒃•

25 ~ déjà vu

AN: HI!

He came to the realisation that he hated the cold. It was unfamiliar to him. At night, he'd bundle himself in blankets upon blankets, yet it did little to warm him. Yifei questioned him about it, but he had no answer. He expected her to get annoyed with the situation, and perhaps she did, alas he'd find himself wrapped up in more blankets. She's throw them at him and grumble something along the lines of him hogging them all, and that was all.

She was rough when it came to showing affection.

He wondered if she behaved the same with his father.

_

One day, he dared ask her, "How many times can the same thing break your heart?"

And she said- "As long as you love it."

_

That night, he had a dream. It was not one of the past, no, but it was something similar.

Here, when his father reached out to him, he didn't push him away. He didn't deny his embraces. The warmth his father exuded would envelop him and the coldness he felt would simply...wash away. It was just them here. Just them, the soft lulls of a guqin, and the glimmering light of the jelly koi pond.

And when his father pushed him away and the flames threatened to swallow them all, Guren didn't let him go. Not this time. This time, he heard himself whisper- "Come with us."

Perhaps in another life, he would've.
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He wondered if he was going to cry each time he thought of him, dreamed of him. That would be...inconvenient, as he found himself to be thinking of nothing but him. For the past few days, that was all he thought of. His father, his mother, his past and the many things he had failed to understand.

In the earliest of dawn, he wiped his tears away and breathed in. It was no use crying now, was it? Crying out of self-misery wasn't...doing anything for him.

It wouldn't bring his father back.

_

There was an odd...tension between Lu Ten and his father before it all happened. Most of the time, Guren couldn't even notice it, but there were moments when the underlaying fear would slip in. He knew that. He knew...fear. Yet this kind of fear was different than the one he felt when he met the Fire Lord.

Lu Ten would try and relieve said tension with his loud voice and harsh back slaps he loved to pester Heiron with. The other man wouldn't complain, instead, as if on instinct, a smile would overtake his otherwise pained expression. Iroh would...quietly drink his tea with his eyes closed and...and listen to them.
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Boasting was like breathing to Lu Ten. And he had right to do so. On rare occasions, Guren was allowed to bear witness to his father's and Lu Ten's duels. They were friendly in nature, but neither man would purposefully give in to the other.

The first time he saw Lu Ten bending, he- For a single moment, a mere flicker in his mind, Guren found himself wishing he had flames such as Lu Ten's. They embodied all that the man was. That single moment passed as soon as it appeared, and Guren thought to himself; those flames only belonged to Lu Ten.

In the end they died with him.
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Lu Ten was kind. Lu Ten...always brought back souvenirs from his expeditions, things that he knew Guren liked. He used to carry Guren on his shoulders and tell him that he could touch the sky that way. He told him that, once he grew up, that he could go anywhere, that he would be big and strong like him, and that there wouldn't be anything to stand in his way.