#i told myself I wasn't going to do kyalin week

[whattheflameo]

Worth It

Kyalin Week Day 4- Travel

It’s a divine feeling, to be moving again. To be going somewhere, a destination ahead of her and experience at her back, seeing something new in every direction. Taking in a deep, exhausted breath and having the cold air fill her chest until it feels as wide and open as the valleys she’s looking down at.

Kya never forgets how much she loves traveling. After all, who could forget how to breathe? But settling down in Republic City had come with its own benefits. The most important one is trudging along behind her- Lin would have made settling down in even the most boring town worth it. But spirits has she missed the freedom of moving at her own pace, the excitement of knowing another spectacular view is up ahead, the challenge of a grueling incline and miles of rough trail stretching toward the mountaintop, the earthen smell of a damp pine forest, the knowledge that she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want, that no responsibilities are keeping her from finding the secrets down each tiny fork in the trail-

“So, does this trail go somewhere, or...”

Lin’s voice behind her distracts her from her giddy musing. The question is exasperated, but when she turns around Lin looks more fond than grumpy, so she doesn’t let it dampen her mood.

Kya drops back a few paces to loop her arm through her girlfriend’s. “We’re probably on mile three, so there’s about another half-mile to go.”

“And is that going to be directly uphill like the last three, or do we got off easy now?” Lin asks. The entirety of the trail has been steep, sometimes so much so that stairs had been carved into the mountainside. Kya has admittedly questioned why, exactly, she’s putting herself through such a grueling hike, not that she’d let Lin know.

She smiles sweetly. “I promise it’ll be worth it!” Lin rolls her eyes and mutters about traveling all the way to the southern Earth Kingdom to walk straight up a cliff, and they continue on.

Lin’s not wrong- there are plenty of hikes closer to home, many of them less exhausting. And it had been no small task to convince Lin to step out of her comfort zone, take a few days off, and go on this trip with her. But one ancient memory of young Lin bounding happily across the cliffs and rocks of Air Temple Island had convinced Kya that this was the perfect trail and she wouldn’t let herself be dissuaded.

The round out the final stretch into a corner between two ridges. The granite walls soar what seems like another mile above either of their heads, one side slumped with rockslide scars. Boulders of every size and shape imaginable stretch toward the small waterfall that cuts between the ridges and crashes quietly into the river their trail has followed. She’d found it while traveling ages ago.

Lin’s eyes light up in a way they haven’t since they were kids. She turns to Kya, a slow smile spreading across her face, and Kya feels the breath rush out of her.

Suddenly, it’s all worth it. Days of pleading and weeks of planning, bribing someone to cover her shifts at the hospital, every exhausting step up this spirits-damned mountain, they’re all forgotten when she sees the mischievous, childlike bounce in Lin’s stance. She’s so incredibly beautiful in this moment Kya thinks any amount of effort would be worth putting that expression on her face for the rest of their lives.

“You thought I forgot how much you liked rock climbing, didn’t you?” Kya asks, waving at the cliffs.

“Spirits, I love you!” Lin darts forward and kisses Kya hard before turning and sprinting toward the rockslide. Kya can’t do anything but grin as she watches Lin throw herself upward toward the first outcropping and begin pushing herself gracefully from rock to rock.

So worth it.