Ikki - Echoes
They didn't know she was watching them.
In the shadow of the veranda, Ikki sat silently in her wheelchair and looked out at the airbenders as they trained. They were light on their feet, moving around the training courses as if they had been training all their lives. In the distance she could make out Opal and Kai instructing more of the new recruits.
The suits that Asami had designed dotted the air, flecks of red over white clouds and pale skies. They danced on the chilled breeze, with their feet twirling and balancing on false support systems. Seeing them so carefree made Ikki's smile fade.
She was supposed to be there. She was the airbender before all of them! Now she was stuck like this! Weak, crippled, useless. She was stuck and she hated it!
Her messy hair covered her face, and she held a hand over her mouth as sobs ruptured her throat. The sobs came hiccuped and shattered, like a vice-grip had clawed through the skin on her neck and ruining her dress with it's splatters.
"Ikki?"
She dared not look up. Ikki knew that voice. A voice that had seen the fires of hell frosted over and cracked before her very eyes.
"Do you want me to wheel you back inside? We can talk then?"
Ikki barely managed a nod. Her bones were on fire.
They whispered on the wind.
Poor little girl. What kind of future will she have like that?