31 First Flame 9

Flying through the air in this hot air balloon as her boyfriend called it, was simply amazing.

Ty Lee found she couldn't keep her head from swivelling around and around as they floated thousands of feet above the ocean. Her stomach fluttered with nerves. She hadn't been afraid of going high for a long time now, not when she could simply jump higher than most buildings. But this was entirely new, she was so high in the air even a battle ship would look like an ant-fly from up here, and there were no supports to latch onto and slide her way down if she fell out.

She was not a bender, she had no way of slowing her fall without structures.

It was scary and exhilarating all at once.

Though much of the fear was waylaid by her boyfriend having the ability to summon Buzzy whenever he pleased, and she was big enough for them both to ride on if needed, not to mention he could pretty much fly himself with his fire bending. So if the balloon did go down or she fell he would save her.

It made her tingle a bit with happiness to think like that. Leaning over the 'basket' as Zan called it, though it looked more like a small boot, Ty Lee eyed the sparkling ocean far beneath them. It was so beautiful with the way the sun reflected off of it, making the ocean look like a never ending field of glittering sapphire gems.

It was still a bit weird to her, to have a boyfriend. Especially Zan. Even more so he'd picked her over Azula, apparently vastly preferred her to Azula. It honestly didn't make sense to Ty Lee. Sure, Azula was sadistic, manipulative and flat out a mean person with little care for others. But that also didn't change the fact that she was the most beautiful, smartest and strongest girl in the whole world! She was the heiress of the royal family after all, and the royal family were existences that towered above everybody else.

Even Zuko, the 'failure' of the family, was a master swordsman by the time he was twelve, an extremely skilled martial artist and a more capable fire bender than most soldiers twice his age at the time.

Zan was a lot like the royal family. He honestly was larger than life. The more he revealed about himself, the more she felt like the little Avatar boy should count his blessings that he wasn't interested in hurting him at all. She wasn't either, but she'd had Azula breathing down her neck and couldn't deny her orders at the time.

She turned away from the ocean to look at her boyfriend. Ty Lee found herself smiling in amusement when she found him pushing himself up into the air with press ups, then clapping his hands before coming down and catching himself and repeating. He was a legitimate training maniac. Since she'd met him just over two weeks ago, whenever he didn't have something that needed to be done, he was training himself into the ground. And when they rose high into the air, and Ty Lee noticed her body feeling heavier and sluggish, because of the 'thinner air' while up high as he explained, Zan had decided it was a good way to work on conditioning his body, and his breathing, though why his breathing she didn't know.

'Has it only been a little over two weeks?' she found herself wondering, her eyes fondly following his muscular form as he pushed himself to the limits with his training.

It felt like she'd known him so much longer than that. And to be honest, she didn't really see what he saw in her. He was so amazing..and all she had going for her were her martial arts skills and big boobs really. She didn't even have a claim to her family's noble status any more since she ran away.

He was offering her the world, more than that even. But, all she could offer was herself. Azula was a better fit for him than her. Her stomach churned uneasily and her heart throbbed at the thought of him with the girl that terrorized her life since she was little, the main reason behind why she ran away to a circus in one of the colonies in the Earth Kingdom. Even Mai was a better fit for him. Either of them could understand his potential better than she could, they were way smarter than her, they could understand the vastness of the abilities he gained from that spirit dragon better than she ever could.

A pair of fingers grabbed her nose between their knuckles and jiggled her head up and down, "What's with the long look on your face?" Zan asked, crouching over her, his right hand connected to her nose.

"Why do you like doing this all the time?" she replied batting his fingers off of her nose and pouting at him. When he merely raised an eyebrow at her she sighed, slumping over a bit, "What do you see in me that made you want me over the hundreds of other girls you could have chosen from?" she asked softly.

"Well a lot more than simply a few hundred, but didn't we already go through this?" he grasped her chin gently and tilted her head up to look him in those molten golden eyes of his, she swallowed heavily, they were such pretty eyes, "Ty Lee is best girl, end of story."

Her face scrunched up, "You said that before, but why!?" her insecurities got the best of her, "I've got little I can offer you, I'm not as beautiful as Azula or Mai, I'm plain compared to them. I'm not as smart as them, I can't offer you anywhere near as much as Azula can. I'm not as strong as Azula! I'm nowhere near as good as Azula, so why would you want me."