𝗕𝗟𝗨𝗘𝗕𝗘𝗟𝗟 𝗙𝗟𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗦. 𝗍𝗒𝗓𝗎𝗅𝖺

singed

tears trailing down her face, ty lee tried to keep her composure as she hand-walked over the rope. the rope gave her callous blisters and the bits of wood in it dug in her slender hands.

the sobs kept coming, and so did the horrible images. her whole body shook, straining to keep her feet in the air. she shivered, even with the intense heat and her eyelids flicker closed before abruptly opening again.

"no! don't pass out, lee," she whispered to herself, salty tears entering her mouth. but she just couldn't do it. her vision already blurred enough as it is, she had stars crossing her line of sight.

enduring it no more, she closed her eyes and her arms gave way. the flaming hoops stopped spinning, and burnt into her exposed calves, and caught her trousers on fire. she fell through the hair, wind rasping in her ears.

azula had jumped up as soon as she saw ty lee struggling to go forward the rope, but as her love fell through the air, her whole body froze.

it was as if time slowed to a snail's pace. the fire princess leaped onto the bleacher's banister and pushed off, leaving a scorch mark on it and a large blue flame propelled her upwards from the soles of her maroon shoes.

she caught ty lee, pulled the rings off her legs and chucked them towards the sand covered ground. the sand immediately put the fire on them out. falling through the air towards the ground, with her girlfriend in her arms with burn marks all over her legs, azula just embraced ty lee tighter then ever.

as the princess touched down, a huge ring of cobalt fire exploded around the two, softening the girl's fall. as the flames died down, azula patted the small singed frays of ty lee's trousers. they had been reduced to the likes of ripped shorts.

but she didn't concentrate on that. she gazed at the burn marks on her girlfriend's pale skin. they meandered up her calves, and continued under the ragged shorts where the ends couldn't be seen.

"what have i done...?" azula panted, trying to catch her breath. tears started overflowing in her eyes. she gritted her teeth, running her hand along the girl's pink and red burns. blood was flowing slowly through the scorched skin.

azula sobbed and gently pulled the unconscious girl onto her back. her legs shaking with shock, she huffed, tears streaming down her face, began to ran out of the circus tent. it's cheerful yellow and red colours seemed to taunt her.

she didn't know how long she had been running. it was as if her mind and body was on autopilot. all that was whirring through her head was that she needed to get ty lee tended to.

before she knew it, she ran onto the gravel of the summerhouse's paths. sprinting even faster, she crossed them at lightning speed. kicking open the first door she got to, she shouted out.

"KATARA! PLEASE! ANYBODY!" she yelled, running to the nearest futon and carefully kneeling down. she placed ty lee and wiped her tears away.

katara ran into the room, followed by sokka and zuko as well as mai and suki.

katara raised both eyebrows. "what happened? what'd you need-- oh my god..."

she dropped to her knees next to azula and opened the cap of her flask. with a quick, fluid movement of her hands, a large flow of water came out of the bottle. furrowing her eyebrows, she carefully spread the water out evenly all over ty lee's legs. and before they touched the skin, she cleared her throat and turn to azula.

"hey... can you take her trousers off? i need to heal the burns on her thighs too," katara said.

azula nodded, and carefully pulled the fabric off the singed skin. she pulled off the girl's trousers and tossed it aside, leaving the acrobat in her undergarments.

she stood up to leave katara to her work. her eye makeup was running down her cheeks along with more tears. she limped to her brother and her best friend, collapsing in their arms because she couldn't bare the dark bruises on her legs and feet no more.

mai's and zuko's arms wrapped around her, helping her lay down on another futon sokka had spread out.

frowning grimly, sokka went to retrieve aang and toph. hoping another person who's able to waterbend could try to heal azula's bruises.

the princess let out a shaky sigh, her amber eyes half-closed and trembling. "she-- she was having a trauma response."

katara turned her head to azula, eyebrow raised and concern all over her face. "how do you know?"

"it was her body language. i should've recognised how rigid she was. and the trembling. please, heal her... she won't have to live with scars, right?"

katara smiled reassuringly and shook her head. "because you brought her here really quickly, i can heal it all up. aang, sweetie, can you heal azula's bruises?"

the avatar froze and gazed at katara, unsure.

"all you have to do is one movement with the water to pure it to a certain level and then gather it up on the wounds. in a few moments, it'll heal by itself, sweetie."

he nodded and waterbended some water out of katara's flask by her hip. he smiled a nervous grin to azula, who wasn't even paying attention. she stared at ty lee's unconscious form, worry etched into her gorgeous face.

"what the hell have i done...?" azula sighed. and then just like that, exhaustion took over her. she passed out to the stress.