The painted lady and the blue spirit

Stay with me

I woke up the next morning feeling guilty.

The whole time I taught Aang firebending yesterday, all I could hear was katara crying. Everyone else heard it too. Sokka sat against a pillar with his head resting on his arms, Aang looked unsure about this and toph....well, she just stood there asking if anyone was going to check on her.

At dinner, Sokka sent Aang to go get katara. We heard him talking to her. Then she started yelling at him. Loud. Then the sound of a door slamming and a thud. Sokka stood up to see what happened. 'Aang? Aang! Get up!' We all rushed to see Aang on the floor, fainted.

Aang opened his eyes. 'Aang what happened?' Sokka shouted at him.

Aang sat up and hung his head low. 'She bloodbent me.' Everyone gasped. Well, except me.

'She would never.' Sokka shook his head.

'She's sugar queen. You broke her heart. And she's a teenager. So of COURSE she's gonna go around bloodbending everyone.' Toph punched Sokka.

'Guys....what's bloodbending?'

'It's a sub-bending element for water where you can bend the water inside other peoples bodies and control them. Possibly....much worse. But when katara mastered this ability, she vowed not to use it because she thought it was for monsters.' Aang explained.

'She bloodbent you? Why?'

'She wanted me out of her room.'

I opened the door before Sokka could protest but....the room was empty. And window was opened.

'Katara!' I shouted as I ran outside and to my war balloon to find it gone too. She left.

Again.

'We have to find her. We'll take appa.' Aang said.

We jumped onto appa and took off.

'She shouldn't be too far from here.' I said. And sure enough, after 10 minutes of flying, we saw a figure floating in the distance. Aang commanded appa to fly faster and when we got closer, we saw that it was the war balloon. Appa moved closer and I jumped on to find katara sitting down, hugging her knees. She looked up and her lip started quivering and she started crying.

'Katara. Please. Don't do this again. Come back with us and we'll find a solution that will make everyone happy.' I reasoned.

'How is that possible knowing that I'll never be happy again. All I feel is my heart crumple even if the slightest  thought comes to mind.' She sobbed. I was about to sit next to her and hug her but stopped. I looked at Sokka, who moved to the other side of the saddle, not wanting to witness my actions. I took that as a yes.

I sat down next to her and hugged her. 'Katara. Your stronger than this. Your the strongest person I know. You can't give yourself up now. You can't end up like my sister. She had no self-control. But I believe- no. I know your better than her. Just close your eyes and take deep breaths. I'm right here if you need me. I always have. Just please please don't end up like azula. I can't stand another special person in my life losing themselves to their emotions.'

I heard her take slow and shaky breaths but eventually stopped crying. I helped her onto appa and settled her down next to me. Everyone was silent. I looked at Sokka who looked away from us and quietly cried, toph who had tears in her eyes, and Aang who had tears streaming down his face. Everyone who lost in thought. And I knew exactly what they were thinking.

Katara has been through traumatic experiences throughout her whole life. She lost her mother, got taken to the fire nation, got raised with my messed up family, ran away to become the painted lady, thinking the rest of her family gave up on her, her brother basically ordering us to do the impossible, and in the end, she almost lost her mind. Literally.

So everyone thought of this and that led to what THEIR own life was like. Aang losing his entire culture and toph saying something about her parents pressuring her into the girl they need her to be. But for Sokka, I didn't really know. And if I was to be in this group, I needed to understand these people.

But for now, we all needed some sleep.