The Second Master of Wind

Girl Time

Nya's POV

I was walking over to Aeria's room to talk to her when I heard someone silently following me from behind. I turned around to see it was Xia. I was about question her, but she answers before I could even open my mouth,

"The boys want me to make sure Aeria does not lash out in anger."

"Alright, but I'm gonna need to have a serious discussion with my brother about his trust issues later." Xia nods in agreement as we continue to Aeria's door. From just outside, we could hear her muttering to herself and when I knock on the door, we hear something rustling before she calls out,

"What?" I open the door to find her sitting cross-legged on her bed, clearly holding something behind her back.

"What do you two want?" Aeria asks sharply.

"We just wanted to talk." We come in and close the door gently behind us.

"About what?"

"Perhaps, firstly, about what you are attempting to hide behind your back?" Xia points out.

"It's nothing."

"Are ya sure?" I questioned Aeria as I walked over and sat down next to her with Xia following me.

"Seriously, have you people never heard of 'personal space'?" Aeria tried to scooch away, but accidentally dropped what she was hiding in the process.

In a flash, I quickly grabbed the object she dropped and opened my hand to find a little origami red panda.

"Awww! It's so cute! You made this?" I squealed and even Xia smiled at the sight of her favorite animal.

"Yes, alright? The tough girl makes origami when she's upset or unnerved, now you know my dark secret. Happy?" Aeria crosses her arms and looks away from us looking angrily moody.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about, we all have our nervous habits." I try to assure her, but she doesn't seem too confident.

"May I ask how long you have been doing this? It seems like you have much experience in doing origami." Xia asks while pulling on the red panda's tail, making it do little running motions.

"Why do you want to know so badly?"

"So that we can help you, it's pretty clear that you have some trust issues, especially with the guys and Ronin and this seems to help with that. So we just want to know, when did the mistrust start?"

Aeria hesitated a bit before finally caving,

"Growing up, I lived on the streets with my brother..."

"You have a brother?" I ask, already knowing she could be talking about Morro, but worried about how she'd react if she finds out what happened to him.

"Had. I don't know what happened to him, I haven't seen him in a long time." Aeria looks down at her fiddling hands in her lap while Xia and I look at each other concerned.

"We didn't always have a lot since my brother and I lived in the streets or away from town to keep from being sent away to an orphanage where they would've split us up," I winced at that point and Aeria noticed and cracked a small half-smile, "So to make him happy one day, when he was upset about some big kids who pushed me around and he defended me, but got a black eye in the process, I took an old newspaper and made him a pretty sloppy paper crane."

"I'll bet that made him feel really happy." I told her as I crossed my legs sitting right next to her as Xia sat in my lap.

"It did, you should've seen his face when I gave it to him. Too bad I never knew what happened to it or him." Aeria took up her black backpack and opened a small pouch on the side to reveal various origami flowers, animals, and knickknacks overflowing inside to where they spilled out onto the bed.