The Thief |Sokka

SIXTEEN

Jaya had never felt welcome in the Fire Nation. From the start, she knew this was not the world she meant to belong in and her earlier years had been filled with a sort of vindication her father had on accident passed down to her. She had looked to the mountains where the Eastern Air Temple had once been and she had been filled with hatred that her civilisation was taken from her. Then her family had been killed. The hatred had remained but the older she got, the more she managed to control it. Stealing from firebenders had made things better for her, and in no time at all, it had become a coping mechanism also, not just a means of survival. The prisons were not all that bad, she reasoned. Even if she was just a common thief among hundreds of more skilled and dangerous criminals, she had soon made a name for herself due to her escapes. At that point, she did fit in. It wasn't until she had met the Avatar's company that she had a chance of letting go of her anger and resentment, along with the emptiness the loss of her heritage had left behind, and be a new, better version of herself.

She hadn't felt at home until she started moving around the Air Temples. Even though she had visited each site more times than she could count in those five years of travelling, the place she felt most at ease remained to be the Eastern Air Temple, even though buildings had been blasted off. No matter where she went, how kind and welcoming the people were, she always thought of going back and only let her guard down when she was on Appa's back or in one of the Air Temples. She had never thought she would be feeling a similar feeling to that kind of contentment in the Fire Nation, and yet, only a few days after her arrival, she had come to feel perfectly at ease. 

The scarlet hue that seemed to engulf the palace from sunrise to sundown remained to be slightly nauseous but she had grown somewhat used to it by now – not enough to not draw the curtains when she slept so that the unfiltered light of day could enter her room in the morning but certainly enough to not mind it all that much anymore. She no longer felt the urge to be quick when she passed by the corridors as if she did not belong there. Now she walked ahead leisurely, knowing exactly where she meant to go. This early in the morning, no servants passed by. For a moment, it was as if she was the only person around, and after all these years getting used to solitude, she found herself enjoying the silence a lot more than she initially thought she would.

Her target for the day was a small garden, a patio, that had a lake in the middle. There was a lone tree casting shade, and she had noticed in her few days here this place did not gather as many people as the training grounds. It would be a good place to meditate. 

She sat down under the tree's branches even though they could provide no shade this early in the morning and the sun was directly shining onto the side of her face. She closed her eyes and relaxed her body. She had just managed to detach herself from the feeling around her body when someone spoke up.

"So this is where you went. It's nice."

There was no point in trying to meditate anymore. Jaya opened her eyes and turned her head to see Sokka standing by a few ways away, looking around the garden appreciatively. He only looked back at her when she spoke up.

"What are you doing up so early?"

"I heard someone leave their room and I got curious," he admitted. "I had woken up for a while, I just didn't have a reason to leave my room."

The corner of her lips twitched into a smile. "So you followed me?"

Sokka couldn't really lie and say he hadn't. He shrugged instead, as if what he had done was of no importance, and headed to the lake. "How did you come upon this place?"

"Aang and I were walking around yesterday evening after dinner and found it. I thought it would be serene in the morning."

Even though he was a bit far away now, she could still hear his answering hum. "I see you leaving on your own every afternoon. What are you even talking about?"