spark || lin beifong

Chapter I - Introduction Part 1

Then, she was very much aware of the wound on her leg that seemed to have been longer than what she initially started with. Wishing she had at least taken healing classes under Master Katara before starting any of her conspicuous experiments, Telepyleia reached under her tunic and felt for her wrappings. She sheds her parka for easier access and takes the small blade she had, slicing the side of her tunic and then slicing a portion of her bindings, letting it unravel, and used it to wrap around her thigh, putting enough pressure to prevent any blood from escaping further but not too tight that it would constrict the flow of blood. Her whimpers of pain bounce off the ice walls that cover her as she tends to her wound. She then takes a deep breath and pushes herself to stand, doing as much as she could to distract her from the pain now pulsing in her thigh.

With what was left of her energy, she bore a hole in the igloo big enough for her to walk through. She limped to the healing hut where one of the healers recognized her and immediately led her to Master Katara when she saw the state at which Telepyleia was in. She was starting to look pale and her skin felt unnaturally cold even when considering that she was in the South Pole.

Katara's eyes filled with worry as she took in the state of the girl. She asked a few other healers to held the girl into her tub of spiritual water and to peel off her clothes. Telepyleia was left only in her underwear and wrappings, with herself going in and out of consciousness. Katara observed the girl with pale lips and an equally almost pale face for a few seconds before quickly going into work, knowing questions of how she got into that state could be entertained later. As she worked her way through healing the wound, Telepyleia was out cold.

The young teen woke up to a cooling sensation on her leg. She groans, feeling the sandy sensation of having a dry throat and a general weak feeling of being unable to move.

She opens her eyes to see her mother looking at her with worried eyes and Master Katara tending to the almost healed wound on her thigh.

"Mama," Telepyleia rasps, wanting to stand up and reach out to her mother but her body, still suffering the damages of having lost so much blood, prevented her from doing so. Along with that, Katara was quick to stop the girl from straining her body further, "That was quite a cut you had, Leia. You lost a lot of blood."

Telepyleia only looked down in shame and embarrassment, thinking how it was wrongful of her to make her mother worry.

"What happened?" Katara queried, more than certain of the cause due to a little object one of the other healers had found stored in the girl's parka, but wanting to let the girl say her side of the story.

Telepyleia's eyes widened, realizing the weight of the truth of her little experiment held when it would have reached Katara's ears. Master Katara, the person who pushed for the criminalization of blood bending, of all people, was the one directly asking her, and it made Telepyleia slightly paranoid that Katara knew the truth due to the knowing glance she had when she asked.

"I cut myself on the way back from a cliff," she attempted to lie, but she knew it was useless. Her mother seemed to buy it at first though.

"Really? Then do you mind explaining what this was for?" Katara asked and then reached out to pull the blade she used to create the cut on her leg as well as the hole in her tunic.

Her mother gasps at the sight of the blade and turns to look at Telepyleia with eyes that conveyed hurt and sadness. "Leia?" Her mother called out, tears already staining her cheeks.

Katara sighs, interpreting the conflict and fear in Telepyleia's face as something else entirely. "Is there anything you want to tell your mother, Leia?"

It was then that Telepyleia realized that she wasn't in trouble. Well, she was, but for an entirely different reason. Both Katara and her mother thought she was trying to end her life. Relief washed over her body, but she willed her face to let it seem like she was apologetic and regretful about what she had done. She really was regretful of causing her mother to worry, but it was in a different context now. She was just glad they didn't know of her little experiment up on the cliff. Looking back at it, she seemed to have set the scene well enough: an igloo on a cliffside where no one really frequented, a knife, and blood all over the snow - it was the perfect setting of a failed suicide attempt.