Title: Garnet
Author: Airbender
Rating: G
A/N: Here's my latest foray into writing for Avatar. A series of one-shots, I matched the qualities of each birthstone with the personality of a girl from Avatar. For example, the first is garnet,which symbolizes faith and trust, for Song. So even though she doesn't match the color of garnet, I think the symbolic meaning matches perfectly. Anyway, enjoy.

Garnet-Faith and Trust

The art of antidote making is a tricky one. One must have patience, stable hands, and an excellent memory. Anything less than perfection runs the risk of the cure being worse than the poison.

Steady hands, Song. Steady hands and a steady heart are essential. Song still remembered the words old Chunhyang had told her so many years ago at the start of her apprenticeship. Chunhyang was dead now, killed by invading Fire Nation soldiers, yet her words rang no less true for it.

Song couldn’t help but remember her old master lately. She pictured the old woman, lips pursed over her state after Lee-who-wasn’t-really-Lee (but what could she call him? She didn’t know his real name) and his traveling companion had left with Song’s ostrich-horse. It was a testament to her skill that her hands were still steady as mountains and her memory clear as water as she ground up the ingredients for a White Jade Bush antidote. Even considering that is was just another reminder of Lee.

Steady. Steady. Steady. Song’s mind whispered, her focus intense as she dropped in various herbs and clean water into the mortar, pestle moving in even, regular circle, alternating from clockwise to counter clockwise. The effectiveness of an antidote is greatly reduced if the ingredients are not completely blended together with each other, not to mention any negative effects a particular component might have are negated by the proper amount of another one. Yin and Yang, Song thought, remembering another of Chunhyang’s lessons.

Song stopped what she was doing and stared at the pulpy contents of the mortar, lost in thought. Even if Lee was bigger and stronger than her, she still could have tried to stop him, or even called out for help. But she hadn’t. Maybe she didn’t know who Lee really was, or what he was about. But the pain they shared from their burns and the hits life had given them were the same.

It was that shared pain that made Song trust Lee’s need for her mount, despite the way he took it, and what he might use it for. Many would think her feelings foolish, or at least misplaced, but when one has been struck deep down in the heart, it is a simple task to see that pain in others.

Song looked at the moon through the window, hanging so full and perfect in the night sky. She rolled up her sleeves and got back to work, trust and faith restored. It was very likely she would never see Lee again. Something inside Song told her she would see him again. When she did, she would tell him that she had trusted in him, in spite of his actions.

And she would ask him for his real name with a smile on her face.

Owari