ATLA Little Bender

Hauntings

Less than two days later, Elaria woke late in the night, feeling a sudden chill shoot down her spine. Her eyes were lit slightly by the graces of the moonlight. The ship was still meandering in the South Pole, as Zuko and her father figured out what to do next. They were waiting for word from any possible sightings as well as taking their best guesses to track down the Avatar's route and destination. 

So far they held an arrangement of tips from different sources, rumors that transcended time and distance to reach their ears. Though all of them seemed ridiculous to Zuko. He planned to choose the most probable one and start tracking the Avatar by eliminating areas of his sightings until they were able to have another confrontation.

Yet Elaria had a feeling that he was most likely somewhere important to him, she would have done the same after all. Like the Summer Palace, the royal family used to spend their summers in. 

She shifted on the bed, moving her left hand into her line of sight, flexing her fingers, the avatar had gripped tightly when they were together. He was afraid, terrified, yet he still smiled at her through the fear. He even tried to thank her. Without knowing she was going to double-cross him.

Without the War; She wondered, could they have been friends? If he wasn't a threat to her people they could have been, perhaps even been close enough to see each other as siblings. She would have grown up in the palace but if their paths were meant to cross they could have met under better circumstances. Maybe her brother could have lived and been the heir to the throne; the Crown Prince; then she would be free. 

If he wasn't the Avatar Elaria could have advocated for him to live as a monument to the decimated culture, and he could be her friend in the palace, someone who would be with her not for title or blood but because he cared. She wouldn't have minded helping him preserve the memory of his people with her influence.

Yet they weren't friends, there was a war. And he was the Avatar. 

A threat. Elaria turned her hand into a fist before setting it at the crown of her head, he was able to bend the water, to create a tornado the lashed her soldiers, he gave no mercy.

Yet why was it with her he had?
Her hands wrinkled the top of the duvet as her ears strained to hear the hum of the ship and the steps of the guards. Her messenger hawk should be making it to the colonial outposts, then a messenger would go on his way to Azula, and with her letter on its journey, she could sleep.

Sleep.

Why did he show her mercy? Was she in his debt now?  

Sleep.

"Do you take the oath to serve your country in times of war and peace?" The sage practiced the lines with her; it was her duty to exemplify perfection for when the ceremony became real. In just a few short years. 

"I-I do..."

Sleep.

"He has proclaimed you to be the Crown Princess, skipping the line of succession to you," 

"But I can't take the throne..." Doubt; fear, anxiety, insecurity threatened to pull her into their depths and swallow her whole. Drowning her in a river of her worst thoughts and nightmares that would play every night after the death of her grandfather. 

Sleep.

"Elaria Regina of Agni, you are the future" Her father had explained to his child; her grey eyes dimming under the pressure as realization set upon her. 

"Please don't! I just want to find my staff!" He pleaded with her.

Oh, forget her efforts.

Elaria grumbled as she got up, moving to her father's room. She knew he was still with Zuko, the man could barely be pried from her cousin. While she used to loathe Zuko for it, she did feel bad when Azula would bully him for the sake of a forced laugh from her, and Ty Lee.

Quietly she closed the door behind her and went to the objects of her curiosity, the air nomad scrolls.

He moved so fluidly, the stances in the scrolls didn't do justice to the grace he held. It wasn't anything like the impassioned quick and harsh motions of fire bending. Firebending was about expelling energy in their body that converted to the flames. It came from their very being, but air... the way he manipulated it was more than she would have ever been able to see from the scrolls her father kept. 

And when they flew. The moment was not one Elaria could enjoy at the time, too embroiled in her fear, and guilt.

Yet it was as magical as anything else, to feel nothing under her.

Elaria, caught amiss in her honeyed thoughts fell asleep to the scent of her father's room and her thoughts to the airbender who could have been her friend. Against all her best efforts she continued to be plagued by him, the childlike innocence was one that she had never seen before. It was a tragedy that the war would destroy it; that he can't support the empire and that they can't be friends.