Red

Sometimes Mako fantasized that, stretched out to its full length, his red scarf could miraculously bridge the distance between the present and the past. His mother and his father would be alive once more. He and his brother, Bolin, would have childhoods rather than years of danger and pain and hunger on the streets. That image of the mugger striking down his parents, so vivid and heartbreaking, would be erased from both his memories and his nightmares.

For a few minutes, arms behind his head, lying down on his bed, Mako was happy and whole once more. He smiled dreamily and closed his eyes, reveling in the fantasy. When Bolin crashed into his room, full of over the top enthusiasm and good humour, the fantasy dispersed. It was as if a mirror had been broken and all the shards had fallen to the ground, pretty and glittering but never able to be whole again.

So the red scarf, once his father's, Mako's only memento of the man he had loved and still loved intensely, did NOT have that power. But it was precious nevertheless and he clung to it ferociously. The scarf occupied a place of honour on his bedside table, and every day, no matter the weather, he wore it. Though almost threadbare in places and slightly tattered, the scarf managed to look good anyway.

And it gave Mako courage and it reminded him of where he came from. It amazed the firebender sometimes the level of attachment he had. And occasionally Mako felt almost childish, hanging on to a piece of red cloth. But in the end, the link to his father and by proxy his mother, that it provided, was more important than all the little insecurities he had. People be damned; Mako would wear that scarf until it could no longer be worn. And anyone who questioned his reasoning wasn't worth talking to.