The air hung heavy in the outer turret of the temple, only serving to deepen Mika's desperation. She felt as though she was sinking beneath a lion turtle, and could not get out. She could see her friends down in the courtyard several levels below, waiting for some sort of update on why the council had called for her. It seemed like ages, not hours, ago that she had sat with them plotting a prank on Dantako and laughing about the crazy lemur dance he had preformed, but now even the thought of her tormentor's humiliation couldn't cheer her up. She of all people understood the burden that had been placed upon her with those four words. The avatar is supposed to keep balance between the nations and the worlds, but she couldn't even keep balance within herself. She was always getting into some form of trouble, weather it was with the monks, or with her friends. As she asked herself all these questions she had been wandering. She slowly turned the corner into the shaded courtyard, and let her body go slack against a neighboring tree.
A breeze always blew through here, but tonight the air was still, peaceful, calming, a stark contrast to the thick air beyond the enclave. Mika loved how the trees grew here, in their own sheltering manner untouched by human hands. Here was where she would come whenever she needed to unwind. She knew that someone would probably come looking for her here, but she could care less. She needed to figure all of this out, and here was the only place she could do that.
As she sat in her small tree enclosed haven, she couldn't help but think how fitting it was that she felt safest here, in the shrine to Avatar Aang. She knew how great he was, how he had ended the war by taking the Firelord's bending from him in an epic battle, and how he had discovered the scattered airbenders that had been in hiding for generations during the war. The autobiographical texts written by him had been lost to time, but copies circle throughout the nations, and everyone knew the basics.
Tonight though she sat and examined the monument to the avatar with new eyes. His peaceful face gazed across the courtyard. At the base of the statue images from the avatar's life. Just above that, images of his closest friends, wife, and children danced along as a trim between the carved stone mat and the monument's descriptive base. They stood etched in the stone, an undeniable truth, and even though she had seen these images thousands of times throughout her life today they were different. The feeling she had always had, a feeling of connection beyond that of a child admiring a renowned hero. It finally made sense, but that, though comforting, was still unnerving.
"How am I supposed to live up to him?" Mika pondered out loud as she shook her head in defeat ", I'm not sure I have the strength to do this." She gazed upward as dusk rolled in. Watching the colors mix in an ever changing portrait, she realized how late it was getting, and turned to leave. As she did a warm breeze blew through the air and seemed to carry with it a comforting message from a long forgotten past.
"You've been here before, everything will be alright."
okay so I know that people are reading this so if you could please tell me what you think. :)