Chapter 31.3- And so the Dragons Danced

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In the end, she finally had the chance to realize that the punishment was a copout. It was a way for her to be punished without truly being punished. For all the love she held for her fellow water benders, nothing equalled the love she had for her own life. It was why she had regretted her decision to allow Natsu be taken on that very day. Sure, causing a scene against so many earthbenders would have brought an unhealthy level of risk to her life, but there had been nothing stopping her from warning Toji afterwards. Nothing but her own anger. But she had made a promise to her mother. She’d promised to live, and that promise alone ought to have been worth more than whatever anger she felt. It was a stupid action, and one she regretted to her core. She had first of all been certain she would never have been found out but that ha died with time. The way Natsu never quite met her eyes when she sought him out and the way Toji watched her every movement sometimes had given up the game.

She’d been sure that her execution had been coming sooner or later. And felt like everything had hit the boiling point when she was called in to the tent. But now, she had been given a lifeline. Maybe this intended punishment would be enough for those who needed her punished. She hoped it would be. Anything but her life was fine. She could give anything but her life. That was the one true treasure she had- the promise she had made all those years ago.

She looked at the three of them. Perhaps Natsu expected her to struggle to drag them from their cells to where she would end them but all she had needed to do was ask the guards to hand the men over to her, and they had done her the favour of escorting them all the way to her medical tent.

Now it came to the time to decide. They were quiet and sullen. She expected that they would be. They were barely even conscious at this point. The reality of having to secure water benders in captivity meant that they were practically starved of water. The amount of water that Natsu allowed into their wagon was severely limited. The amount that each of them got to drink was even more limited.

“Please. Wa…ter” One of them managed to murmur out at her. She remembered him easily. He was the one who had cursed at her when she healed their hands in such a way that they could not use the limbs. He had called her a whore, a Fire Nation slave, and a dozen other things that she could not repeat even in the safety of her own mind.

She looked towards the jug of water off to the side of the tent. She would have feared them taking a hold of it and springing some form of escape if they were any more lucid.

A/N: Bits and pieces