No worries! I get distracted by so many things all the time lol. "Anyways, I'm glad to see Ty Lee is doing more for herself." Glad that you're enjoying her plot line! I wasn't planning on giving her one but I'm happy that it's happening lol. "Will there be more from her pov?" There will be! In this chapter, in fact! "As for Seicho, I commend her for trying to stick by Azula's side and for trying to understand her." She's trying to be patient with Azula even though Azula is being rather cold. I have a bit of a plan for how it's going to unfold but I'm kind of letting that part write itself, if that makes sense. But I know where I want them to end up.
Seal hunting, penguin sledding, building snowbenders-it is all such a delight!
The cold is still harsh on her cheeks and nippy on her nose but it is a small price to pay for the frigidly enchanting, mystifying world around her. For the small fluttery flakes that sparkle on her lashes and on the fur of her parka.
And the lights! The lights in the sky that lick at the stars-more of them than she has ever seen!-she feels like she is home. Home and yet the Tribes are nothing at all like the Fire Nation by any means. And maybe that is why she is able to feel as well as she does. That same frosty breeze that bites at her face, is the breeze that freezes all of her stresses and woes to a stand still.
Everything is so fresh and so new and like nothing she has ever seen before. And in the open expanse of the rolling, glittering tundra is free! Truly free. And free to be anything she wants.
Today, she wants to be a snowflake on the breeze or a fold in those glowing sky curtains. Perhaps she can't be either in the literal sense, but she can certainly feel like one. All she has to do is run. Run, light and weightless until her exhilaration reaches a peak. And she does, she takes off into the fastest run, only caring for the world around her insofar as to not get lost.
But on a night like this she can't imagine that she would get lost. She can't imagine that anything bad could happen because she is so, so far from the places where bad things happen.
Away from the people who cause those things.
She might not be lost in the tundra but she is lost in life. And lost in life she may be but she thinks that it might be fun to just wander for a while. Wander with no direction and no goal at all. At first she thought to seek out a daring romance in the cold, cuddling up by a fire and swathed in heavy blankets. Yet the longer she flounces about in the snow, the less compelling that fantasy becomes.
No, she needs a real escapade. One that isn't bogged down by romance and obligation. She reaches the village and turns to look back. Her footprints in the snow, a map of excitement and hope. She flights herself down and flails her arms and legs, just as she'd seen a few of the village children do.
She laughs like them too.
Carefree and optimistic.
She laughs like herself.
And she thinks that she knows where she wants to go from here.
.oOo.
For a while, a very mercifully long while, Seicho has kept to her word. She hasn't asked a single question. Hasn't uttered a single word. They trek in silence, not that she has any other choice, she ruefully reminds herself. And then she reminds herself that she won't have to worry about that soon anyhow.
Such have been the nature of her thoughts for the past three days. And the opportunity has presented itself more than once; a particularly high ledge, a poisonous berry or flower, a lethally venomous snake within arms reach…
But they are not for her.
Not befitting of her. Not grand enough. She doesn't want to die spasming in the mud in some Agni forsaken jungle and cliffs and ledges aren't sure enough. Not like the volcano.
The hike isn't doing her mood any favors, she is dirty and smells of mud and musk. She is uncomfortably hot and sweat-slicked. Every time she goes to wipe some grime from her face she smears more upon it. She is dirty and loathsome as she feels within. And now, she doesn't even have Seicho's incessant chatter to distract her from it.
If TyLee could see her now, the woman would probably wonder what she had ever seen in the her. She isn't sure what anyone had seen in her. Can't see why Zuko has bothered to bring her to Ember Island at all, it would serve him much better to personally accompany her to the volcano and push her over the edge. Perhaps she should go back and pose the offer…
"We're about a day or two away."
Azula nods. Good.
"Can I ask you something?" She is almost relieved to hear Seicho speak again. So much so that she doesn't point out that she has already asked her something. Her relief, like much else she enjoys, is cut brief. She supposes that she should have seen it coming, Seicho was bound to inquire eventually. "Are you going to tell me how you lost your voice?"
Azula pauses to find her parchment. 'Why would I?'
Seicho shrugs. "I don't know. I guess…" She frowns. "Sorry, that was a personal question, I should have started with something easier."
But that's just it; there is a part of her that is itching to tell her. Perhaps to get it off of her chest. More likely, to show Seicho the kind of person she is. 'I'll tell you tonight, after we make camp.'
Seicho grins. "Great! I was also wondering if you'd like to stop at that stream for a bath. I don't know about you, but I'm getting all sticky and gross."
In way of a response she makes a brisk break for the river. She thinks that she hears Seicho chuckle and wonders if the woman had made the suggestion more for her than for herself. It doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is washing the filth from her skin, nevermind the details. So gross does she feel that she doesn't hesitate to strip her clothes away. If the peasant has any problem with it, she can turn the other way.
"I have some soap, if you need it."
Azula nods vigorously and holds her hand out.
With a smile, Seicho hands her the bar and leaves her to her undignified backwater bath. She emerges from it smelling less like sweat and mud and more like seaweed. But Agni is it better than being covered head to toe in grime.
"I washed our clothes." Seicho mentions. "They aren't dry yet so…"
Azula shrugs, her inhibitions and social graces are well and gone. They'd vacated on her last visit to the institution, whether she was aware or not. She holds her arm out, it is a bumpy mural of bugbites and scratches and a descent bruise from when Seicho had run into her with an armful of firewood.
"Those aren't painful, are they?"
'No'.
"You should really take better care of them, so that they don't get infected." She holds up some slave and bandages. "Can I?"
Azula inhales and holds her arm out. Seicho is surprisingly careful. She purses her lips in concentration as she dabs each cut and scrape with with salve. It is overdoing it, but Azula allows her to wrap her entire arm with bandages. She lightly pats Azula's hand, "there that should do it. We can change the bandages tomorrow."
'Sure.'
"Are you feeling better now that you're all clean?"
'I wouldn't say all.'
"Are you feeling better now that you're cleaner than before?"
She feels no different, really.
.oOo.
The woman keeps her distance, gazing intensely into the campfire, likely because she still doesn't want to share her story and Seicho can't bring herself to ask a second time. Evidently she is surprised that the woman hasn't tried to char her to a crisp yet.
"You hungry?" She asks instead.
Her eyes don't leave the fire, she isn't even sure that the woman has heard her.
"I was able to catch some fish, I could cook those."
The fire gives a loud snap.
"Alright. I'll cook both fish and if you want one you can have one. But you should eat something."
The woman averts her gaze at last and feels around for her brush and parchment. Seicho watches the brush bob back and forth for longer than she had expected. The fish are mostly cooked by the time she finishes. She holds out the parchment and grabs the fish. She finishes cooking them as Seicho reads through her note.
"You…" Seicho beings "You wanted the spirit to take your voice?"
The woman takes the first fish from the fire and offers it to her. She nods and takes her own fish.
"But you want it back now?"
The woman nods again.
"Well that was one wild impulse decision."
She gestures for the parchment. Seicho hands it back and the woman scrawls something else. She holds up the parchment. 'There's something wrong with me.' Seicho takes her hand. "You're hurt."
The woman shakes her head. 'It's more than that…'
"Then what is it?"
The woman tosses the parchment into the fire.
"Alright, time for a subject change. What's your name anyways?"
She doesn't pull out another piece of parchment.
But at least she had made some progress. At least she had opened up even a little. "Can we talk about the spirit? That creature sounded terrifying. Terrifying and lovely all at once." The woman simply nods in agreement. She tries to picture it in her head; thin ribbons of iridescence, curling endlessly and evershifting. Tries to hear it in her head, a voice that is a chorus, that is divine and horrifying in synchrony. "I don't think that you needed to do that. Whatever you said that made you think that you had too…"
.oOo.
If only it were just one thing, one angry sentence. That could be brushed off, taken as a heat of the moment lashing. Maybe in a sense that's what it was. But after a certain point, rage driven insults are spoken often enough to become a rather defining trait. An ingrained and deeply innate flaw of character. And to call it a flaw so drastically understands what it is. It is more like a glaring smear on her personality.
It is her personality.
"I don't think that you're a bad person."
But she will inevitably, should she be given the chance. Frankly she is surprised that the woman hasn't found a reason to think so. At the very least, she must think her rude and unpleasant. Bad company that she is stuck with.
Seicho probably regrets the trip as much as she does.
She looks at her arm, at how tenderly it had been tended to. Her stomach flutters, a cross between sadness and discomfort. Perhaps a little fear. She looks up from the fire to see the woman smiling softly at her. "I can tell you a story." She offers. "It's a folktale but I haven't told a campfire story in a while. Maybe you're more of the listening sort. I'm definitely a talker. I think that you can tell though because I go on and on and...do you want to hear the story?"
Azula's tummy flutters again and she nods. She isn't sure why but she nods. She can't remember the last time anyone has told her a story just to tell one. She isn't sure that anyone ever has. Seicho's face lights up nearly brighter than the fire. "Okay so there's a boy who finds a polished stone on the beach, mom always called it the hope stone. The boy was terribly said, he lost his family to a hurricane. It destroyed his home and his ship too. He was so hurt and so angry that it came out in everything he did. Eventually his friends couldn't stand to be around him anymore because he was bringing them down. And when his friends went away he had nothing left at all. So he went down to the beach in the middle of the night."
Azula stares at her palms, shifts in her spot.
"He was so furious. He just started picking up rocks and throwing them. And then he found a really smooth and shiny rock. It looked almost like a mirror so when he pointed it towards the sky it was like seeing a galaxy on the stone. And in that galaxy, it showed him things. It showed him how to mend his friendships and how to be happy again. It showed him is parents and they smiled up at him. He knew that they wanted him to be happy…"
She doesn't mean to but she finds herself nodding off. She doesn't think that Seicho has noticed because the girl is still talking. She must have nodded off in full because she wakes up in the tent, Seicho snoring on the other side of it.
She swallows hard, she can't place exactly what they are born from, but there are tears in her eyes. She wipes them away.
"You're awake again?" Seicho mumbles. "You should go back to sleep." Azula isn't sure that the woman is fully awake. She is certain that she isn't when she clumsily swats at her muttering, "lay down, it's night time, that means lay down and eye shut time." And yet she finds the coordination to tuck her in when she finally does lay back down.
She hasn't been tucked in, in ages either. Not by someone other than herself. And her mind wanders. Wanders to a new place. It is just an itch. A small thing in the back of her mind. A small thing that magnifies itself in her dreams.
Tonight she doesn't dream of volcanoes and blackening skin. She dreams of a galaxy, of a reaching hand.