ATLOP: Trial by Fire

The Sea Scroll

And Triton thought sharks were nice anyways, Percy agreed with him.

Percy was glad Triton was there for him, he was a good friend.

Percy's only friend.

OO OO OO OO

Triton said he would be busy for awhile, the celebration Hom'amio Kalala had passed (and apparently went well) and Triton had to do other work to prepare for something called storm season, or Veruo as Triton called it.

He wondered what they did during storm season, but Triton assured him it was nothing for him to worry about.

He declared he would be teaching Percy more about sea culture though, and gave him four books to read while he was gone.

They looked cool, like the dramatic old books in shows. They had hard coral covers that felt really nice to run his fingers over, and the paper inside was more... gritty? Than normal paper. Triton called it tepote.

The downside was that they were written in a language Percy didn't know, with an alphabet he'd never seen before. And they only had a few pictures.

Triton seemed upset that Percy didn't know the language, but provided him a dictionary anyways. He said the language was Halmaheran, the language of the sea.

He informed Percy he expected him to be able to have basic conversations with him when he got back. So... Percy now had summer homework.

Yay.

OO OO OO OO

Percy had figured out a few new fighting tricks for his waterbending. He was recreating Master Katara's blades of ice, but trying to make more of them.

He could control six at once so far, and hold fourteen in the air.

He wanted to be able to control twenty at once, to protect himself from all sides.

He almost felt like he could feel the water he was manipulating too nowadays. It was very cool.

It had been a year since he figured out he was a waterbender, which was the same amount of time it took for Master Katara to become a master (less if you only counted the time till she finished in the Northern Water Tribe). He wasn't as good as her, not at all a master, but with Master Katara to teach him he thought he was improving pretty quickly.

Master Katara was an incredible person to live up to, but he was doing his best.

Practice made perfect.

OO OO OO OO

Percy found that Halmaheran was actually really easy to learn. He didn't know why that was, but he certainly wasn't complaining. It felt natural, like he'd always known it and just hadn't realized. It only took a few weeks for him to not need the dictionary at all.

Though, he wasn't sure he was pronouncing the words right. He figured Triton would help with that.

The scrolls Triton gave him were pretty interesting once he learned how to read them.

The first scroll was all about sea etiquette. It was just an overview apparently, but he could already tell it was different from the things his mom taught him about land etiquette.

He didn't know much about land etiquette except what his mom told him–no elbows on the table, eat with your utensils, hold the door open for others, all that.

For one, Merpeople didn't shake each other's hands, or even bow like he saw people do in the TV shows. They held their hands certain ways, and moved their fingers in different motions depending on the rank of the person.