#atla timeline

The Crescent Island Traveling Players had been traveling through the Fire Nation for the past couple weeks and had only just arrived in the capitol city this morning. The city itself was quite a sight, no matter how many times the troupe traveled through it. And this was only the second time Carabella had come to the city in her memory--the last time had apparently been shortly after the current Firelord's ascension to the throne, and she had been a child then--so it was even more of a wonder to her to see this beautiful, lively place sitting smack dab in the caldera of an inactive volcano. Even the Earth Kingdom's citadel wasn't this brightly colored!

Carabella hadn't yet had time to explore, however. She was busy helping Jaca and the other members of the troupe set up the performance space.

Once she had a moment to herself, the young acrobat found a corner outside the main tent where a trampoline had been set up and clambered onto it to warm up for the evening's performance.

She was mid-flip at the peak of a bounce when she noticed someone standing somewhat nearby, watching her. It threw her off her balance, and she flailed a bit as she came back down, bouncing once on her belly before catching herself and aiming to land lightly on the low safety rail around the trampoline’s edge, her cheeks turning a bright pink that warmed her face to the tips of her ears in embarrassment.

Someone had been watching her practice.

And they’d seen her fumble a trick and nearly face-plant.

She didn’t think she would get over this mortification very quickly.

She hopped down from the trampoline, her gaze focused on the ground until she had her feet safely planted on the hard-packed earth, determined to not fumble twice in a single minute.

When she looked up to meet the gaze of her observer, however, the blood left her face and then immediately rushed right back to her cheeks fast enough to almost make her dizzy.

Flaming fire ferrets! What was the Firelord doing here?! And why was he just watching her practice?

After traveling through the Fire Nation for a number of weeks, the Crescent Island Traveling Players had reached the outer edges of the capitol city and set up camp there.

Carabella often liked to practice her routines and meditate on her own once the camp was sufficiently set up for her to slip away. So that was what she planned to do in this moment, slipping away to find a shaded area far enough away from the camp that she wouldn't easily be interrupted, but close enough to still see the goings on.

What she didn't expect when she found a suitable tree to sit and meditate beneath was that somebody would already be there.