“Maybe you were brought here for a reason,” Eska suggested, lacing her fingers around the other girl’s. What else could she say? It was a difficult statement to respond to. “Maybe someone in the Spirit World thought that we could help each other.”
The truth was, Eska wasn’t so sure that she believed such things, believed the ideas her father had raised her with. Often, spirits were not any wiser than humans. They did not necessarily know best. And it was very rare that they actually had anyone’s best interests in mind, or even cared.
It disgusted her when she thought how she had allowed her father to brainwash her with promises of a better life, how willing he had been to take advantage of a lonely, lost little girl, of his own daughter. How he had promised her whenever she struggled that if she made the spirits happy, one day they might “fix” her.
{implying I’m broken implying I’m wrong and I believed him I swallowed every word}
Now he was gone, and Eska was learning to make her own decisions, but she felt like this was what the other girl needed to hear.
“I am glad to have met you,” she added, and realized this, at least, was something she knew was true.
“I’m glad I met you, too. You’re...the best friend I’ve ever had,” she said quietly, squeezing her hand. Unlike Eska, Azula had great faith in the Spirits. She agreed with her theory wholeheartedly, and felt a bit of relief at having an answer as to why she was in this strange place.
“Speaking of the Spirits...can I...tell you something?” she asked haltingly. “I...know there’s been a misunderstanding about something, but...I never corrected it because I was afraid...”
It shocked her that she was about to tell Eska something so stupid. This could ruin her ability to stay here, could get her kicked out or worse, this could land her back in prison. And she was going to tell Eska. For no reason, she was undoing her greatest self-preservation. Why on Earth was she saying this?
Because they were friends.
