Reconstructed in Pink

(A Remix of DJNS's "Reconstructed Destinies")

.

Ty Lee is thirteen when she finally earns her tattoos. She could have had them a year earlier but she purposefully failed her practical exam on the thirty-sixth and final airbending tier. The nuns chide Ty Lee for being so absentminded in her exercises, and their determination for her to excel seems unreasonable at the time. She's just another novice.

Only she's not. But that news comes later.

Ty Lee, at age twelve, throws her final exam because she can't bear to shave her head and lose the braid of chestnut hair that falls to her mid-back. It's hers, and marks her as such. The six older nuns who share Ty Lee's face and grey eyes have tattoos but no braids.

Everyone at the Eastern Air Temple is Ty Lee's sister, just as every boy at the Southern Air Temple is Ty Lee's brother. If Ty Lee takes a fellow airbender as a mate, he or she will come from the temples at which none of Ty Lee's immediate blood relations live.

Ty Lee has never seen a boy at the Southern Air Temple with her face or grey eyes. But everyone knows about Ty Lee's blood family at the Eastern Air Temple, and they compare her to them, she knows it, even if no one says it aloud.

Ty Lee, at age thirteen, takes her final exam and aces it. She weeps when it comes time to shave her head. Sister Iio consoles Ty Lee with the achievement of beating out the previous record holder by a week to become the youngest airbending master in history.

Not that Ty Lee is unaware of the timing.

. . .

The midnight sun hangs over the horizon, as near as it will come to setting for weeks yet. Katara should be asleep but isn't. She can't trust her company to behave themselves.

A glance over the lip of the sky-bison's saddle head confirms her brother is still sitting up front, one arm draped over Ty Lee 'for warmth' just like the airbender requested.

Purring ghosts along on the sea breeze.

Floozy, thinks Katara.

Untiringly watching them with all the focus of an albatross-hawk empties Katara's mind, and into that space floats a number of thoughts, a few moderately poisonous. Gradually one idea begins to nag at Katara, forcing her to blink first.

"Hey, Ty Lee?"

The airbender turns as much as she can with Sokka's head resting on the shoulder of her orange fleece shawl.

"Katara, what's the matter? Your aura is all tinged with dank green! Are you cold too? What didn't you say something?"

It takes her a few seconds to parse that nonsensical statement. Being told she's jealous of Sokka is laughable, but Ty Lee's worry is earnest.

"No," Katara says. "I was wondering... you're an airbender. Do you know what happened to the Avatar?"

"Of course I do!"

Katara rises to her knees. "You do?"

Ty Lee grins. "I'm the Avatar."

She rolls her eyes. "Right. And you look pretty good for a hundred plus year old airbender."

"Thanks?"

"I was just curious. Goodnight." Katara turns over and rests her back against the saddle rim. Her eyes close. This way Ty Lee will be off her guard. When the airbender attacks Sokka, Katara will rush in and save her brother from himself.

Three minutes later she's fast asleep.

. . .

"Looking for me?"

All eyes turn to her and a pleasing shiver races up Ty Lee's spine at being the center of attention once again.

The firebender stares at her, and he might be a little bit of a sweetie since he stares at her face and not the bountiful area just to the south. "You're an airbender? You're the Avatar?"

Her waterbending friend is taken aback. "Ty Lee is the Avatar?"

Oh Katara! "I told you, silly!"

Sokka grins. "I snuggled with the Avatar?" His fist punches the air. "YES! Er... I mean, huh. How curious."

"Better," says Katara.

"I've spent years preparing for this encounter. Training. Meditating." The firebender spits, "You're just a teenager!"

"That's true!" Ty Lee strokes her lips with the ball of her thumb. I wonder where else he has scars. Mm. "Now why don't we all sit down, have a nice cup of tea, and discuss our differences peacefully?" She claps her hands together hopefully.

The cutie blasts her with fire.

. . .

"On second thought," the Avatar says, "you're not much to look at."

Zuko, hogtied and bruised, stews in the back of the sky-bison's saddle.

The Water Tribe idiot lowers his spyscope. "The warship is definitely following us."

The Avatar hums happily. "You're uncle must really care about you to agree to that ceasefire."

"Ah," sighs the Water Tribe girl, "that memory is going to keep me warm at night. An oh-so-mighty Fire Nation prince trounced by a girl."

"I was not trounced. I just need to take the Avatar alive. If she won't fight honorably, then next time I won't hold back."

"Honorably?" sniffs the Water Tribe girl. "It was six on one!"

"She's the Avatar!"

"And she beat you all half to death with a big stick," says the Water Tribe boy.

The Avatar giggles. "Thwack!"

. . .

Iroh finds his nephew several hours later, bundled up in a fur blanket atop a small iceberg in the middle of the ocean.

"You see, nephew? We were both right! There are a lot of pretty girls out there and so is the Avatar! You found what both of us wanted for you!"