1. The Child With Eyes Too Old (1/2)

back when avatar first ended i tried writing a fanfic about a girl who discovered she was an airbender. it didn't go so far, but i decided to remake it by making that girl a straight up si of past me. this first chapter in very introduction like, but hopefully it's not too bad.

edited 7/15: this chapter has been beta'd by rosezelene ersa

it ended with fire.

she woke to the sound of her mother yelling. she felt no alarm however, her thoughts merely wandering to the test she knew she had to take later that morning. for her advanced classes she had to take four tests, each with three parts, over the next month.

she had been studying laboriously the previous night, and her

ow crinkled in annoyance at the jarring awakening. all she needed… was sleep.

her hand reached out and

ushed the surface of something smooth on her bedside table. the screen of her cell phone lit up, proclaiming the hour to be 3:04 am.

lazily the girl rose from her tangle of bed sheets and stormed up the basement stairs with a yawn, the light of her underground bedroom glowing softly behind her.

she didn't see the flames, nor could she smell the smoke.

later she would realize that the fire had started outside, in the run down shed that was connected to the garage. there was a small pathway between that and the house. from the time her mom heard the lawnmower explode at 3:00, to when she sprinted frantically past the door that lead to the garage, the flames were already at the door.

the fire alarms haven't even gone off since the fire wasn't inside.

that changed sooner than she thought.

suddenly, she could feel the heat. it crept up her arms and legs and clung to her skin in a hiss of ultimatum. she stopped walking and turned to the door… just as it shattered from the heat.

almost blankly, she remembers thinking in those last few moments how at least she didn't have to worry about her tests.

her life ended in fire.

vidya was born on the last day of fall, during the last harvest of the year. it was their first child, and admittedly neither had spent much time around children before they decided to start a family themselves. yet li-an knew there was something different about their child.

cheng was the one who named her vidya, saying that their little girl already seemed like she was trying to figure out the world. li-an though he was just being silly. she was a baby. grandma vidya told her that all babies look around because they are trying to get use to the world around them. yet li-an agreed to call her vidya even if she wanted to name her first daughter something more normal.

the first thing li-an notice that stuck with her for years to come was that the baby sleep through the night. this frightened the new mother, and led to many nights where she would wake up, running haphazardly into the other side of the room to see if she was even

eathing. she had heard too many stories of babies that roll over in the middle of the night and suffocate themselves in the bed. on those nights, she just

ought the baby into the bed with her and cheng.

still, vidya would sleep all throughout the night without a sound. then in the morning, it would seem like the only times that vidya would cry was when she was hungry or needed to be cleaned. even then it could hardly be called a cry; it normally stopped as soon as she started. then she would be silent once more, looking around with eyes that seemed dull.

when she

ought it up with her husband, he just thought she was smart enough to know when to cry.

"i told you she was going to be a smart one!" cheng announced happily, and li-an forced a smile.

it only made her wish to keep a keen eye on vidya, and not in the normal way a mother watches her child. always taking sidelong glances to catch the next odd thing her baby would do… to always prove to herself how the child she birthed was abnormal as they come. how awful was it that she was watching her own child in the manner of a cynic? she

ooded continuously, and overtime her eyes grew cold. li-an could never shake the feeling that vidya... wasn't really a baby. wasn't really her baby.

"mama."

li-an dropped the plate and it clattered to the ground, it's un

eaking face mocking her as she turned around to face her "daughter".

vidya was still on the soft woolen blanket her grandmother had made at her birth, lying on her stomach looking like any other six-month-old. she looked up at li-an with wide eyes and a sweet smile that was slowly falling.

"what did you say honey?" li-an testily inquired as she paced towards the child, trying to calm her agitated nerves.

she was just a baby. maybe vidya is finally starting to babble and it just sounded like...

"ma. ma." vidya said more slowly, almost like she was testing the word out, before turning her unnaturally cognizant gaze back at li-an. almost as if she was waiting for the woman's reaction.

the mother looked to her child, knowing that she should be ecstatic that her baby is already talking. and yet… she wasn't. li-an's mind churned with worry. if this kept up, she would have to worry about others might finding out. then they would know her daughter wasn't normal.

just then, the door slammed open and li-an yelped.

"sorry love, didn't mean to scare ya! but~ guess who was able to drive those flame heads back to the sea?!"

this time li-an's face lit up in a genuine smile as cheng's arms wrapped around her midriff and swung her around, the couple giggling quietly at the good news.

"fame 'ead?"

cheng pulled away and gave vidya a huge grin, his arms falling back to his sides.

"that's right. flame head. those firebenders think that we are just going to roll over and let them take our land? we showed them all right!" cheng said as he picked vidya up.