Broken Spirit Book 2: Desperate Times

Chapter Nine: Nadia

The boat ride to the North Pole feels like it takes a different length of time each instance I ride it. This time it seems to take forever. I am tired from the mission and traveling by eel hound but I can't sleep. My mind has been racing with thousands of random thoughts since I received Kavik's letter. As much as I try to rest, I simply can't. I know I should because the next few days will be long, I am sure. Next to me, Suika has no trouble falling asleep, curled in a small ball standing on one of the armrests. My head leans against the window, my vision is fluttering between the darkness of closed eyes and the vast expanse of ocean and the horizon.

At first all I see is the ocean, large and open, on a good day welcoming and calm and on a bad day frightening and troubled. Then my vision swims with memories.

Learning that I was a waterbender in the capital with my parents. We were visiting for my first ever New Moon Celebration. The Northern Water Tribe Chief, who I would soon learn to be Kavik's dad, had brought the celebration back since it had dissolved during the one-hundred-year war. I was mesmerized by the large city. I don't remember my exact age, I just know that I was young, like maybe 3 or 4. It was so different from the outskirts my family lived on. My parents had left my brothers in charge of me while they gathered some new furs or food or something from the markets. My brothers were excited to play the game booths, knocking down wooden boards, catching fish in a pond, and so much more. They had run ahead and I, being as small as I was, lost them quickly. I had no idea where anyone in my family was. I looked around hoping to see someone I would know. If not my parents or brothers then possibly a neighbor who had also come for the festival. I didn't see anyone, but I did see a pretty light so I went to that. In what appeared to be the center of the festival was a fountain that waterbenders were making dance directly under the full moon. I watched in awe as the waterbenders moved in rhythm to the drums and music. I started to dance along to the music, copying the waterbender's moves. The dancers noticed this and took me into the center. One lifted me onto their shoulders and I was having so much fun. I twirled my arms to match what the bender below me had been doing and suddenly a bit of water flew to my hands and moved with me. The people around me who had gathered to watch the dancers clapped for me thinking I was part of the show. I didn't even realize what I was doing. Soon the waterbender set me down and I dropped the water, creating a splash. An older man leaned down and asked me if I knew where my family was. Before I could say I did not know, my parents ran up to me. My dad grabbed me and put me on his shoulders and my mom gave me a relieved look. Then as my mom was about to ask me something, the old man from earlier started talking to her. He smiled at me and pointed to the dancers and was telling my parents something that I couldn't hear over the roar of the festival crowd. It wasn't until later that night before I went to bed, which was weird cause my older brothers had already gone to bed and that was special, after the festival that I figured it out. I was offered a rare spot in a waterbending class in the capital.

That's when a giant koi fish jumps out of the ocean briefly and snaps me out of my memory. But once the water settles after the koi fish is gone, my vision blurs with more memories. This time I dream about my first few lessons before I lived in the capital. I woke up early each morning. My family's home is in a small village about a two hour slow walk to the capital where my waterbending lessons were being held. Because of this long commute I only attended lessons about once or twice every few weeks. Even with practicing at home, I started falling behind the other students. Eventually I started skating or bending the snow so that the journey wasn't as long, but even then it still took a hour. Normally my lessons were on weekdays, but my father needed something from the stores in the capital, and because of his work in the village, could only pick it up on a weekend. He wanted me to go with him since I knew the city, so I had asked if I could have a lesson that day. I thought I would be the only one there, but when I arrived after helping my father find the stores, there was a boy maybe a year older than me there. I didn't recognize him from any of my previous lessons. I thanked my teacher and this boy for letting me join the private lesson. While we practicing some of the moves, he had asked why I was joining in this lesson. I told him that I wasn't from the capital and that I was personally invited by our teacher to take lessons, but that because of where my village was, I couldn't attend lessons very often. He asked me if I had any relatives or family friends in the capital I could stay with. Our master had heard this, thinking it was a decent idea, and started talked to my father when he came to pick me up. Unfortunately, my father told my master we did not have any family in the capital for me to live with. My master was sad to see such potential not get the training it deserved. My master had seen something in me before I had, before I realized I was special, while I was still just Nadia. Such simpler times, when the most frustrating thing on my mind was keeping up with the other students. As my father and I were getting ready to leave, the boy ran up to me and told me that he hoped to see me again and that maybe I could stay with him and his father in the capital so I could get training. I was excited by the idea, but I was terrified of leaving my family. I told him I would like that and to keep me updated if it was possible. I remember asking for his name so I could tell my mom about the news, and he told me to call him Kavik.