Leia knew things were going to be alright. That's what she kept telling herself the whole time she laid on the hospital bed she was assigned to stay on for two days. She didn't know exactly why she insisted on staying another day when she could easily take care of the post-hospital wound maintenance but she suspected that it was probably because of her innate want to be cared for and coddled especially after being abandoned by the man she'd learned to call brother over the course of five years.
Still, she gathered that things will be alright. Tenzin was a loss, yes, but that was just part of life. She had her friends, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, and San. She had her sister, whose favorite scent of perfune she currently wore (she still had the bottle the girl had given her on the day she left for Republic City and used the fragrance sparingly), and family back at the South. She had Katara and maybe Aang too. Her loss of Tenzin wouldn't start the end of the world.
So, Leia finalized, things were going to be alright. It'll all be okay. It'll all work out someday.
It'll all make sense again.
It didn't mean she wouldn't feel upset and awful, though.
Currently, Leia was working on finishing observing a bunch of skin cell samples of an eel hound placed in bacteria-specific agar dishes. The eel hounds they took samples from lived in a slightly polluted part of a river just outside Republic City. It was one of the drop-off points of the city's sewage system. They were currently quantifying parameters set for monitoring the water quality of the river and trying to find out if wildlife is affected by the presence of certain compounds and organic substrate in the water. In particular, Leia was observing for coliform bacteria. Looking at the dishes, she felt a slight tingle down her back once she recognized a few colonies of coliform had indeed formed in each one of them. Those things have infested the skin of the eel hounds, Leia shuddered at the thought of being in the situation these animals were in. She'll never take clean water for granted ever again.
"Hey, T," a voice startled Leia from her thoughts. The 21-year old proceeded to look slowly at her friend who just chuckled at her.
This was her first day back in the institute after being hospitalized and diagnosed with anemia. Turns out that the little bone marrow adaptation she had earned over the course of a year under Katara's care slowly went back to normal once she didn't use her little blood bending trick as often. As a result, she was still feeling out of it and tired easily.
"Damn, that wound did a number on you," Jeongyeon remarked both as a teasing and worried comment, seeing Leia's still relatively pale face. "I'm surprised you're able to be up and about after just two days in the hospital."
Leia was able to smile a bit at her. She coughed in an attempt to clear the hoarseness of her voice caused by being asleep for nearly 24 hours. "I'll be fine. As long as I don't do anything strenous for the next couple of days, I'll be in tip-top shape in no time."
Leia's wound on her hand had healed quite nicely over the course of two days. She made sure to at least start on healing it the moment she felt faint due to her late night activities. She still had bandages wrapped around her hand, though. She didn't want to risk getting it infected or having it re-opened. Leia didn't mind having them there. If anything, it made her feel really badass despite her current diagnosis.
"Oh, and I have to take a lot of iron," she added, remembering her doctor's orders. She gave Jeongyeon a cheeky grin. "I don't eat healthy enough so I bought supplements."
Leia had expected Jeongyeon's dolphin like laugh to ring through her ears. She was used to hearing it like hearing an alarm clock every single day.
"Ah, Leia, pabo ya," that's currently Leia's favorite native Earth Kingdom word, "Supplements are supposed to be just exactly that - supplements. At this point, you should alter your diet-"
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spark || lin beifong
Fanfiction"Well, if you're so smart, why don't you read me like I'm some lab rat of yours and be done with it, hmm?" "Geez, you act as if I didn't know who you were for the past 20 years. All you need to know is that I think you aren't some old bitter woman...
