Frozen Flame

Chapter 5: Medicine

Fire Temple

A deep breath in. And out. Raising hands to the sides of his head, the Fire Lord sighed, letting his hands brush through strands of his hair before falling by his side. The air rushed back down his throat, warm yet fresh. The heat from the fires and volcanic aromas were almost intangible to Fire's inhabitants. 

He closed his eyes, blocking out the day's events for only a split second before it came rushing back to him. His eyelashes fluttered open as his back thudded against the ebony and wood bed-frame, and he slid down its cool surface. He'd always found it intriguing - how his room was one of the only rooms in the Temple that held a slight relief from heat within the furniture. 

Not that there was much to begin with. Only the large bed, a small table hidden in a corner and a door that opened to a slightly smaller room full of clothes. Everything else had been removed from the room long ago. So there was a lot of empty space.

A lot of nothing.

But he wasn't staring at the nothingness, he was staring at the crusty black splashes on the wall. At the grating slashes decorating walls, floorboards, corners, even the roof of his room. Of the indented burn marks in the walls and the concaved portion of walls on the side filled with the crusted black. The lined numbers scratched across the walls of the back corner and the portion of floorboard that was so damaged it had turned to scraped-up white. There was once a picture there. But it had been so long ago, he couldn't recall even an idea of what the picture once was.

A semicircular scrape across the floor on one side of the room reminded him of the secret room. And the nail half implanted in the wall on the other side suggested the hidden passageways sealed within and behind walls throughout the entire Temple - and, of course, an entryway from his room into the maze of hidden hallways. He didn't know if there was any other entryway in his room. That was the only one he'd found in all twenty-four years of his life so far.

This room that was so wide and empty, yet confining - constrictive - was the embodiment of years and years and years before. Each mark struck a chord in him: anguish, sorrow, hurt, anger, hope... Any and all. Yet... all were but memories. And somehow, there was a pleasant 'knowing' settled inside him that memories were all they were. That they happened. That he lived. That he survived.

And that they could be reflected in something other than his spiralling mind.

He blinked, his eyes silent. As they were. As they always would be. Nothing there. Empty. 

He bowed his head, hiding his face in the safe home of skin - his knees. His arms squeezed in. Just a small dot in this room devoid of anything peaceful and yet one of the most peaceful places on this planet.

A breath.

He held it.

Let it out again.

And stood, taking off his outer garments and walking through his side doors to the balcony. 

He closed his eyes, breathing the air once more and stood atop the railing. His arms drifted out to the side as the wind caught them and brought them up. A soft smile and he fell.

A second before the wind caught him and brought him back up above the railing.

A beautiful creation by his mother - a man-formed directing of strong wind - one of her last gifts to him.

He smiled and opened his eyes, staring at the sky above him, floating on a bed of wind. The air trailed hands of comfort over him, surrounding him in a hug that stood the hairs on his arms up straight.