ANYTHING BUT; avatar the last airbender

epilogue

[epilogue]

    Much of the world had changed in the years that had passed. They had all grown, changed. While the youth in their bones and minds and hearts had not gone, it lingered differently, then. A new, changed sense of life is what remains now.

    Lian, only twenty, stares at her reflection. At the woman who stares back at her. She stands before the mirror, her long hair intricate pinned and braided up, not a single piece laying against her neck, though pieces frame her face delicately. She is dressed just as carefully, just as cautiously. Perfect. She was to appear perfect.

    A long, dark green skirt reached the ground, so much so that her feet were not visible even to her. Atop her skirt, however, a white cloth wrapped around her chest, squared at the neck. For the final two layers, then, in shades of a lighter green, was her robe. Its long, wide sleeves reached to the tops of her knees, held tightly together by a long strip of fabric, the same dark green as the skirt that pooled around her.

    "Lian."

    She looked through the mirror, then, her eyes finding Katara as she slowly, quietly approached. The younger girl, not eighteen, stopped before her, lowering the white scarf-like cloth around her, settling it into the creases of her elbows. Her hands, then, settled upon Lian's shoulders. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her friend's shoulder and smiled in the mirror.

    "You look beautiful," Katara said quietly. Her hands slid down, straightening the fabrics covering Lian. Smiled again. Nodded, as if a thought ran rampant in her mind.

    Lian noticed, turning with furrowed brows. She grasped her friend's hands in her own and said, "What's wrong? You have not stopped moving. Not once."

    "Nothing," Katara waved her away, her hands resting upon her hips. "We should go. We don't want you to be late to your own crowning ceremony."

    Lian huffed out a tight laugh, then, and nodded in agreement. Running her hands along her clothes once more, she turns her back to the mirror, following closely after Katara. Following after the guards as they swarmed them; following as they were directed towards the courtyard.

    As they grew nearer, she could hear the commotion. The rallying voices and shouting, all of those who had come to watch, to witness as a new ruler was named. As she, Lian, became something so much more.

    The moments seemed to blur together, then. From being ushered out, to kneeling, to the sages speaking, to her father, Keui, lifting the golden circlet above her head. To settling it upon her, the weight familiar and known. It fits perfectly, she realizes, as it all seems to become clear. As if it had been made for her. Meant for her.