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There is smoke everywhere, and Song cannot see a thing, but she is running, running, running. Mommy and Daddy are gone, lost behind her somewhere in the swirling ash and heat, but the last thing they told her was to get out, as fast as she could, so she ran with all her might and she hasn't stopped.
She dodges flaming beams that fall from the sky, panicked screams and shouts of violence and pain echoing around her. A body falls from somewhere to her left; she stumbles backwards, barely avoiding being crushed, and continues, not stopping to see if she knows the face of the dead woman.
Song runs and runs and runs, and the running is getting harder now with the smoke choking her lungs and burning her eyes, and she barely even notices as the light gets brighter, as her breath comes easier, as she reaches the edge of town. Eyes clenched tightly shut, she sees nothing at all until SMACK! She runs straight into something soft and living.
Song opens her eyes and sees that the thing is a man. He looks down at her in surprise, then crouches. "Hello little one," says the man, and his eyes are kind, and Song is so tired, "Did you come from the town? Very clever of you, making it all the way past our barricade. You must have been very frightened."
Song nods, lip quivering, and when the man opens his arms she collapses into them and begins to sob. She cries until there are no tears left in her body, and the man holds tight and rubs her back and whispers soothing nothings. After her last shuddering breath gives way to exhausted silence, he speaks again.
"How old are you, child?"
Song wordlessly shows him six fingers, and he smiles.
"A good age. My son is a few years older than that. You know, he would get scared too, sometimes. This," he says, and from within his robes he pulls a small stuffed rabbit, "would help him, when he did. He gave it to me when I had to go away, for good luck. Would you like to hold her?"
Nodding again, Song grasps the rabbit to her chest, clutching it tight. As she does so, a sound is carried up in the billowing smoke behind her. A scream, louder and more sustained then the ones that have come before, an anguished cry made of many voices at once. Song startles, and starts to turn to see the source of the noise, but the man gently rotates so his body is blocking her view.
"Don't pay that any mind. Everything will be over soon." He begins to walk further past the edge of town, towards the camp of silver and red that Song had watched form on the hillside last week. "My name is Iroh," the man tells her. "You are a very brave girl, worthy of a new home. We'll find a place for you here very quickly, I'm sure. Would you like that?"
But Song is already asleep, head pressed down into the velvet of his shoulder, finally overcome by the exhaustion of the day. Iroh chuckles and continues up the hill. He remembers that sergeant Tanaka had mentioned that she and her husband were looking into adoption during her next leave. The sergeant has done her country very proud in the past month. She is strong, like this little girl that reminds him so much of Lu Ten. He'll surprise her, Iroh decides as he crests the hill. An early extended leave, and a new daughter to boot.
Iroh's heart is full as he thinks of his loyal soldiers, and his son waiting at home, and the second chance being given to the child in his arms. He sends a quick prayer up to the spirits, grateful for the chance to spare at least one girl from the short, difficult, poverty-stricken life she would've led in the town that is burning below him.