"she changed,
but not overnight like in the books you read. over years. slowly and painfully. sometimes brutally.
but she did."
tenshi has been through a lot and on the way lost sight of who she was and after an injury, lost her memory too. when she...
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Aang was okay. He'd been out for a long time now. Katara would check on him every day to make sure he was still breathing and every day she would come to my room after with a defected sigh. Some times she would ramble on about Aang, about missing him, about how she "failed" him. Some times she would let herself in and beg me to get her mind off of things, to tell her stories about growing up in the North Pole or my time travelling before the fire nation captured me. Some times she would simply sit down beside me without a word and cry into my shoulder. And everyday I would be there for whatever one she decided she needed.
I rubbed, what I hoped, was a soothing hand up and down her arm as the girl curled further into my side, my arm wrapped around her shoulders, "I'm sure he'll wake up any day now, Kat." I smiled down at her gently, "He's getting stronger."
She doesn't get out any words, her breathing laboured and heavy as she attempts to calm herself down. She'll get there eventually and then she'll leave and act to everyone else as though nothing happened, as if she's perfectly fine. She's not fine. She will be though, eventually, when Aang wakes up.
***
Toph didn't have a ritual with one of us. She preferred to deal with her things in her way. The rest of us let her. We all knew she missed Aang, as much as she would never say it out loud. We all missed Aang, we were all grieving him because as much as we wanted him back, we all knew there was a chance he wouldn't make it.
Sometimes I would catch Toph sneaking to visit him, I'll never understand why she feels the need to hide her visits nor why she's so worried about showing she cares but I'll never say a word of her visits to anyone because that's what she needed. I considered this her ritual. She would visit him when she thought no one was looking and then quickly leave as though she'd never been there at all and would act as though nothing had happened and everything was fine. I don't think she's fine but she will be, eventually, when this all passes.
***
I was getting better. I had less and less out bursts of fire as the nights went on. Only because every night I would visit Sokka in his room. Sometimes I would show up at his door just after dinner and act as though I merely came there to talk or hang out, disguise my intentions and spend some time with him distracting myself. Sometimes I would appear in the middle of the night, deep bags under my eyes, awoken by the nightmares. Sometimes I didn't even need to go to Sokka, sometimes he would come to me, I think he found comfort in our nightly ritual as much as I did. Every night he would welcome me with open arms and a warm, tired smile.
