Frostfire ━ The Last Airbender

07 | the fearsome commander zhao

SEVEN | THE FEARSOME COMMANDER ZHAO.
( the southern air temple, part one )

❝ and every demon wants his pound of flesh,
but i like to keep some things to myself. ❞

BEING THE STEP-DAUGHTER of the ruthless Commander Zhao, Pearl's thought her dreams should be filled with fire and blood and steel. With furious armoured boys baring red-hilted swords, and arrows tipped with fire.

The boys in Pearl's dreams were very different.

For one, there was no fire. Her dreams were wistful and warm, adorned in acrylic strokes of pink and gold. There were usually clouds so fluffy she could fall asleep on them, or a sun so real it would kiss her pale skin, or a pink castle with spires so high that Pearl could see her entire, pastel-painted world from the window. Everything was soft and hazy. Like an oil painting. The lines weren't sharp, the colours bled into each other, and each expanse of land her mind created swaddled her tight. It was the only place Pearl felt safe. Or, at least had the potential to.

She played the damsel in distress often in her dreams. It was preferred that way. It was exhausting having to find new ways to save herself in the real world, so it was fun to relax in a tower and have the rescuing come to her. She could probably get out of all her magenta-bricked towers if she wanted to—sure, she was a wimp, but she wasn't stupid, right?

But the thing her step-father would probably hate the most about her dreams were the rescuers themselves.

Pearl didn't think too much about it at first—when she was young and she learned to feel what the world told her to feel. People would climb into the tower decked with metal chest-plates and a sword in its sheath. They always looked Fire Nation—pale, with wayward dark hair and arms peeking with muscle. Pearl knew that was what girls her age were supposed to like. When she was part of conversations in her pre-teens, girls would talk about boys like Prince Zuko (whom Pearl just found lonely instead of attractive) who roughed in the schoolyard, could firebend at a moment's notice, and only gave you the slightest bit of attention (Zuko never gave any girls attention except for Kasumi, but that was only because they got on each other's nerves). It was obvious that those boys were the normal and normal was considered dreamy, so Pearl set those imaginary boys up as her heroes so she could have the slightest thread of connection with those other girls.

As she got older, she realized how loose that thread was.

The boys' faces changed as she grew. Their faces got longer, their jawlines softer, their chests slimmer. Lashes were long and lips painted red. They were still boys, Pearl thought whenever another one with slender legs and small shoulders climbed into her tower. These are boys.

At around twelve, when Pearl's dreams started feeling like this, she also noticed how boys looked at her. And how girls her age would blush and grin when a boy ogled her, or gave her a smile, or stared plain and simple.

Pearl waited for it to happen. She waited for a boy to stare at her like they often did and feel a sprout in her heart, a bloom in her ribs, a buzz in her throat. She longed to feel the brush of delicate wings in her stomach.

But still, her body was vacant. Butterflies were nowhere in sight.

Pearl concluded that there was something wrong with her insides. She was already ostracized from the other kids, and nobody cares much about an inside that's practically rotten. Boys just knew she was bent. She wasn't worthy of butterflies and blushes. She'd have to fit in first.