And here I thought I was never going to continue this story. Hmm. It's short; this is mostly to see if anybody will be interested in the story. So if you want more, leave a review.
Chapter Two: An Unfortunate Heart
The room was large, and built of stone. There were four windows, each starting about two feet from the floor and ending three feet from the ceiling. They were pane less, but only five inches in width. Thick curtains were tied off to the side of each to block the openings during cool weather. There were two windows on each wall - it was a corner room - so the light was evenly distributed, much to the chagrin of the room's inhabitant. A large, worn orange rug engraved with the symbol of the air nomads dominated the center of the floor, and several other small rugs and animal skins were scattered across the flagstone. A sleeping palette sat in the corner next to the door, covered in four animal skins of varying shades of brown. A small stool and shabby desk in the opposite corner were the only other pieces of furniture in the room.
Sokka stood in the center of said room, eyes wild and chest heaving. Not two feet away from him, Azula looked at his upset figure with narrowed eyes. She had told her brother that she would help Sokka through a mental healing, and she planned on doing just that. She would not return home a failure. She also, however, would not stay in this temple forever. Nobody expected her to throw her life away on this deranged tribesman. And yet... "Why don't you just get over your damn pride and come eat? You don't even have anything to be proud of!" She regretted the last statement, as such couldn't do much for a mental healing, and therefore probably made her job more difficult.
"Urgh!" Azula sailed through the air, disoriented for half a second, before she gracefully curled and landed on sturdy feet. The instant urge to shoot a nice fiery punch at her attacker was quickly suppressed as she stood up straight and dusted off her shoulders. "Fine. Be that way. I suppose you don't want to see Katara again, after all. That's no problem of mine." Her last sentence was irritated and her footsteps were heavy as she exited Sokka's "room." Slamming the metal door behind her, Azula was quick to shoot a meditative fireball at the closest wall. That boy was so damn ungrateful, stupid, hopeless, stubborn... With a sigh and a quick check on the perfection that was her hair, Azula admitted that that was exactly why she was helping Sokka.
It was like helping an old, lost piece of herself.
The agitated princess stalked down the shadowy hallway of the western air temple, trying to think of ways to force her charge to eat. They'd done it numerous ways before, including holding him down, shoving the food into his mouth and blocking his nose until he swallowed, but such methods usually ended up pushing him into deeper shades of red than he was already in. His anger had reached phenomenal levels – surpassing what even Azula had been like – leaving his close friends and family to try and take care of him.
She was neither close friend nor family. She was a kindred spirit, who herself had tasted the edge of a mental oblivion, who knew the hot surge of anger and the unbearable need to release like an old shadow. A shadow that, sometimes, still crept to her side. But Sokka was a better person than she had been. She knew this more than she knew anything.
And she would help him.