Life Travelling Through Fiction

The stranger ran away leading the soldiers he was still fighting out of the village. So here I stood alone with three unconscious teenage girls. My first instinct is to bail and nope out of this scenario. I find a flat wall and briefly enter my warehouse and grab Rayquaza's pokeball. As I'm about to leave through a thought hit me. Flashes of my meeting with the lion turtle and his brief instruction on energy bending appear in my mind. His instructions we're never what I would call clear, but just now they seemed a little more understandable. This new understanding plus with all of my other bending improvement I think I can take or give a person bending. Is this what the lion turtle meant when he told me I would understand in time. Did he mean I would understand with more experience or did he mean that at this particular moment I would understand? The first makes more sense, but spirits enjoy being mysterious.

I could take Azula's bending. Stopping her now before she could do so much damage. I won't though. She's 14, still a child. Abandoned by her mother in favor of her softer younger brother. She was instead was left with the tender mercies of Fire Lord Ozai. While she flourished under his parentage I can't say it was particularly healthy. Despite all of her success, she will have a full mental break down as everyone she ever knew or care about abandons her. Not to mention the pressures of being the heir to the throne. Even after the war, her mental health will still be in ruins as everybody leaves her.

Now that I think about it, it's kind of f.u.c.k.e.d. Every fire nation character besides her and Ozai gets a happy ending. Now Ozai is a megalomaniac who was fully in control of his actions so his punishment is fine. Azula on the other hand is so clearly having a mental break down she loses a fire bending match to Zuko. Zuko doesn't win because he got better he wins because Azula is fighting worse and sloppy. Now how do I help her?

With a plan now in mind, I prop up Azula's unconscious body. I place my left hand on her forehead and two of my fingers on my right hand and inch below her collar bone on her sternum. I focus on the feeling I got from the lion turtle. Like spirit bending, I feel for my internal presence and push out. I guide the energy through myself and into Azula. I feel a raging fire burning inside her and I try to extinguish it. Her own being resists but I guess an unconscious identity is weaker than a conscious one because I easily fight past the interference extinguishing the fire taking away her bending.

Trying to take away her bending put me into a slight trance. Upon completion, I'm slightly dazed and I take a moment to reorientate myself. Now I move to the next portion of my plan. I grab Azula hoisting her over my shoulder, release Rayquaza, then place her on him. I move to leave but take a glance back at the unconscious Mai and Ty Lee. If I leave them here they will have to keep tracking me down and the princess might lose legitimacy for disappearing. If I take all three it might be harder to help Azula, but the three of them could always just tell people they went off as a team instead of being kidnapped. That might make opinion changes less scrutinized. I guess I've convinced myself that kidnapping three people is better than one. I grab Mai and Ty Lee placing them on Rayquaza as well. I then take off looking for an out of the way place to talk things out. With Rayquaza's speed, we're able to quickly cover most of the continent, but we end up landing about two days away from the abandoned town in a forest clearing.

I laid the three of them down, recalled Rayquaza, and then began to set up camp for the night. The camp was set up and a fire was going before any of the girls started to wake up. Ty Lee went from waking up to alert and sitting up in moments. I face her, but she doesn't make any move to stand up or anything

"I would never tell an artist how to paint, but I've never seen anyone kidnap and princess and put so little effort into it," Ty Lee tells me cheerfully.

"I'm new to it, but ideally I'm trying to help the princess. I really only brought you and your other friend to hopefully smooth things over."

"It doesn't matter. Azula is going to be furious when she wakes up."

"Yea, I imagine she'll be even angrier when she realizes she can't bend."

"Yeah, but a lot less likely to burn down the forest. So you're trying to help Azula why exactly?"

"I want this war to end. I think I can do that by helping the princess."

"I don't think that's going to work"

"I think I can make ending the war in her best interests."

"Hmmm" She responds non-committally as she leans forward to get a closer look at me. "Huh. You and Azula are both so bright, but Azula is red and you're really blue"

"Ohh you read Aura? Can you tell me about it?"

She seems to consider it but before she can respond the others start to wake up.