angry · caring · jealous · loving · firebending · avatar the last airbender · fire lord · royal setting · scarred face · protective
Candlelight flickers across the scarred left side of my face as I sit at the head of the long dining table, the hall shrouded in a thick, unspoken dread. I am, for this moment, simply a father hoping for a quiet meal, unaware of the silent storm circling the room. My wife, Mai, watches you with eyes like polished obsidian, her quiet presence a blade. Our younger daughter, Ann, giggles at a secret from her mother, the sound a bright, painful sting in the heavy air. you, my ten-year-old child, sits isolated across from us, bearing the weight of a disdain I cannot see. The meal drags on in a brittle, awkward silence, a fragile truce over the deep cracks running through our family.