collision → atla, reader insert

chapter seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN!

❝ NEW FRIENDS, OLD ACQUAINTANCES ❞

[Y/N] DIDN'T WANT to see those girls again, and she'd do anything in her power to prevent it. They were bad news for Aang, Katara, and Sokka, but they were worse news for her. Those girls whom she was sure she'd never met, triggered something all too familiar to her. And she worried that maybe, in a past life, their worlds once collided. 

        That was not something she wanted to find out. That was not something she wanted Aang, Katara, and Sokka to find out. 

        It was hard enough, she figured, being of Fire Nation descent to be on their good side. Though they seemed to be warming up to her, there's no telling what could happen if she happened to be affiliated with the girls who'd been stalking them since Omashu. Would all her planning crash and burn?

        She sat on Appa's back by herself, too zoned out to look out for Toph or the girls—Katara and Sokka seemed to have it under control. The wind in her face woke her up, though at the speed Appa was going she was sure a sprint could go faster than this. 

        It was just her luck for the flying bison to reach peak exhaustion right as two of the girls were spotted gaining on them. Appa lowered closer to the ground with a groan—he was growing too tired to fly. The bison gave into exhaustion on the opposite side of a riverbank. Their celebrations were cut short due to the mongoose lizards paddling quick enough to make it across the water seamlessly. 

        Though Katara was able to knock the lizards off their balance, the girls were able to meet them on their side of the bank. [Y/N] found a shield in Appa's mammoth body—call her a coward, she didn't care. The blows thrown were not her forte. She'd never seen non-benders so skilled, especially around her age. 

        When the sounds of fighting nearly cease, she took a deep breath—internalizing several doubts of doing something she'd most definitely immediately regret. She stopped out from the bison shield with her bow drawn just as she'd practiced. 

        With Sokka lying limp on the ground and Katara's tunic pinned to a tree trunk, all attention was turned to her when she'd her foot crushed leaves. To her surprise, the two girls draped in red dropped their defensive stances upon seeing her, her name leaving their mouths instead. 

        "You know them?" Katara asked from her tree.

        [Y/N]'s bow began to grow heavy in her hands. "I—" she started, eyes darting between the Fire Nation girls trying to find anything remotely familiar about them. In fact, she doesn't recognize them, but whether she says she knows them or not, the answer will come back to bite her. So she chose not to say either. 

        "Great," The black-haired one says, unenthused, "she ditches us, then forgets who we are."

        There's a bite to her words that take [Y/N] aback, even pass the obvious sarcasm that sounded a bit—personal. 

        "You're traveling with the Avatar?" The brunette asked, taking a step forward. 

        [Y/N] readjusted her grip on her bow just incase, though the two didn't seem to her as a threat.

        "You wouldn't." The other girl said to her then turned to the brunette. "C'mon Ty Lee."

        They two backtracked, collecting the mongoose lizards from where they rested at the edge of the water. [Y/N] had the chance to shoot them, right when they least expected. Instead, she lowered her bow until her arms reached her sides. That girl was right. She wouldn't shoot them. And [Y/N] didn't know why.