[ ——» ☼ «—— ]
” can you — ? “
adolescent fingers are crooked &
stiff from practice, shoulders thrown
back with feigned pride, with an
exhaustion that one could not
describe with even the most delicate
of words. her legs wobble slightly
beneath her but she carries on,
forwards, acting disinterested in what
her friend ally has to say. ( father
says heiresses don’t need friends,
only allies to watch their back, but
she’ll never admit that she’s always
felt there was a little bit more than
that between herself and Ty Lee,
a connection that feels more like
something her mother might describe
in a story book about the other benders
and their beautiful adventures )
it is true that she is tired, tired
simply because of her lack of sleep,
simply because she woke up early
this morning to train ( and hasn’t
stopped since the sun rose, pushing
her body until the sun began to sink
lower, and lower, and lower — ),
simply because she felt like sleep
was a good reward for how hard
she pushed herself today. tired, in
the normal sense of the word, like
when Zu-zu tells her he wants to go
to sleep & to “ stop making that crackling
sound and shut your eyes, la-la! ”
Ty Lee follows her into the dining
room that is now vacant. she’s
missed dinner, as per usual, and
she sits down, nearly crying out
when her back cracks in four
different places when she hits
the ground.
i can tell that you’re tired.
she pops fruit in her mouth
without a word, holding back
the tears that sting her eyes
as a result of her aching arms,
aching legs, quickened heart.
she wants to dismiss Ty Lee,
tell her off with big words she’s
heard her father use during war
councils when he’s angry, but
then she imagines his eyes hanging
over her, watching her as she blasts
fireball after fireball into the air,
burning up the oxygen, burning up
the water all around her until her
skin is dry and her feet burn against
the hot grass.
she stands, the only sounds of weakness
that are emitted from her mouth is a grunt
and a quick sigh and she turns her back
to her friend ally so she doesn’t see her tears.
“ you’re right . “ ( she doesn’t like those words )
” I am tired . ” her lungs scream as the two of
them make their way down the hall and Azula can
hear Ty Lee babbling on about how “ you should
eat more if you’re going to work that hard! ”
but she doesn’t quite understand.
Azula needs to be better, needs
to work harder, needs to ignore
the girl’s advice because if she
doesn’t— if she doesn’t feel tired
at the end of a day, she isn’t good
enough.
she jerks around and silences Ty Lee
with a push. ” you can leave now . ”
she says, when her aching legs and
dry tongue scream for her to ask the girl
to stay. ( stay because the nightmares of the
flames licking her back will come if
there’s no one to protect her, stay
because she knows Ty Lee can help
the pain in her sides, stay because
Azula’s never had anyone to stick
around this long who wasn’t related
to her, stay because no one has seen
her pain before and it’s almost a relief
to know that someone does ). I’m just
tired, she thinks as she slips into her
room alone and collapses onto the bed,
just tired.