The next morning was rather grey, as the sun was covered behind a layer of clouds. Despite this, I was internally bubbling with excitement. Today I was going to help teach the Avatar waterbending! Despite my eagerness, I kept myself calm and collected as I waited patiently for Aang with Master Pakku. Both myself and Pakku were in deep concentration, controlling a swirl of water that we were moving around our bodies. However the peace was quickly snapped with the arrival of the energetic Avatar Aang.
"Good morning master Pakku and master (Y/N)!" Aang yelled from a few metres behind us. At the sudden shock, both myself and my master dropped the water we had been bending. Unfortunately, I had just been holding my stream of water above my head, meaning that when I lost concentration it dropped all over me, soaking my clothes. Although soggy, I was still over the moon: the Avatar had just called me master (Y/N)! How cool is that?
"No, please, march right in. It's not like we're concentrating or anything," Pakku growled, evidently annoyed at the disruption. As I used waterbending to remove the liquid that was now in my clothes, I twirled around to see Aang stood there next to Katara. My heart dropped when I saw them, as I remembered that I purposefully didn't tell either of them that it is forbidden for women to teach waterbending. Katara was going to be distraught, and I knew that this wasn't going to go as planned.
"Uhh, this is my friend Katara. The one I told you about," Aang stated as Katara bowed out of respect. Pakku whipped around to look at them, and I saw an unhappy look on his face. I prayed that master Pakku would rethink his ways and openly accept Katara, but I knew deep down that it was a long shot. He quickly proved me right.
"I'm sorry, I think there's been a misunderstanding," Pakku explained as he used waterbending to create an ice chair that he then sat in. "You didn't tell me your friend was a girl. In our tribe, it is forbidden for women to learn waterbending," he continued, and I saw the look of pure hatred start to appear on Katara's face. Aang turned to look at me with a pleading face, as if he were begging me to tell him that it was all a joke. With regret, I sadly shook my head. Katara continued to look at us with rage.
"What do you mean, you won't teach me?!" she fired up. "I didn't travel across the entire world so you could tell me no!"
"No." Pakku stated ruthless and unremorseful, and I officially lost all hope.
"But there must be female waterbenders in your tribe," Katara begged, her eyes desperately turning to repeatedly look at both me and Master Pakku. I regretfully lowered my gaze so that I looked at the snowy floor in an attempt to avoid her gaze
"The women learn to use their waterbending abilities to heal," I broke my silence, hoping to reach a compromise. "I'm sure that Yagoda would be delighted to teach you," I continued with a smile, but Katara didn't budge.
"I don't want to heal, I want to fight!" she exclaimed passionately. Although I couldn't see this going well for her, I had to admire how driven she was.
"I can see that," Pakku started. "But out tribe has customs, rules,".
"Well, your rules stink!" Katara shouted. Although I agreed with her words, she wasn't going about this the right way. Speaking aggressively would not go well against master Pakku. Aang was quick to agree with his friend
"Yeah, they're not fair!" he announced with equal passion. "If you won't teach Katara, then-"
"Then what?!" Pakku snapped, eager to provoke the Avatar. I stood still, and very on edge, as I watched the scene play out. Surely Aang wouldn't refuse to be taught waterbending?
"Then I won't learn from you!" Aang blurted out with anger, confirming my suspicion before turning and starting to walk off. I instantly started to get worried; the Avatar had to learn waterbending somehow. If he can't master waterbending, he won't be able to learn to earthbend or firebend, meaning he won't stand a chance against Fire Lord Ozai. Feeling that the world could be on the line, I shouted out to the young Avatar in an act of desperation.
"Aang wait, you can't do this," I yelled as my voice broke slightly, and my words caused the boy to stop walking away. Katara ran over to Aang's side and said a few words to him that were inaudible to me. Whatever she said seemed to work though, as the Avatar trudged back over to us unhappily.
"Why don't we get started, then," Pakku mumbled, before sending a stream of water at Aang, which knocked him over.
The training session started out quite normally. Master Pakku would ask me to show an example of a waterbending move to Aang, and then he would give bits of advice to the young Avatar. However, since Katara had been sent away, it was clear that Aang was waterbending with a lack of heart. His motions were stiff, his stances were off, and he obviously wasn't putting in a whole lot of effort. In return, Master Pakku's determination to teach Aang started to gradually disappear. About an hour into the session, Aang was trying to control a ball of water, before launching it as if there were an opponent there. It was a pretty basic move that we called the water bullet. At this point master Pakku's effort was diminishing, and he was now enjoying a bowl of fish soup. Aang was clearly struggling with the move, though Pakku wasn't giving particularly helpful advice.
"You're moving the water around, but you're not feeling the push and pull," Pakku stated without even glancing at Aang. This frustrated the boy, who had sweat running down hisface. It didn't help that Pakku took a particularly large gulp of his soup. "Maybe that move is too advanced for you. Why don't you try an easier one," he unhelpfully added, causing Aang to break concentration and throw his water to the ground with a frustrated grunt. I decided it was time to intervene before another argument broke out.
"You're trying to move the water with too much pressure. Waterbending is all about fluidity. It's not about who can push the water the hardest," I explained to the Avatar. I showed him the move, making clean, fluid motions with my hands. I brought my hands up to my shoulder, with caused the ball of what to rise to the right of my head. Suddenly, I pushed my hands from my shoulder out away from my body in a fluid, sweeping motion. As a result, the orb of water shot away from me, and hit an ice dummy that was supposed to resemble an opponent. I had performed the move to near perfection. "See, it's not about using all of your strength. Now you try," I instructed, and for the first time today I saw a determined look on Aang's face. I repeated the motion for him to copy, and he quickly was able to successfully perform the move, albeit with less power than me.
"Yes!" The Avatar celebrated, giving me a high five. I even saw a proud look on master Pakku's face, though who it was directed at I couldn't tell. The lesson ended after another hour, which felt much more successful than the first hour. I walked down the ice stairs with the young airbender, who was now happy that he had learnt some new waterbending moves that he could show off. "You're a really good waterbender, (Y/N)," he complimented me, which caused me to smile. I had been complimented on my abilities many times, but it felt particularly amazing that the Avatar himself had said it.
"Thank you. Though it's really the spirits you should be complimenting," I simply stated, causing Aang to give me a confused look.
"What does that mean?" he questioned.
"Waterbenders draw their power directly from the moon," I started to explain. "I'm different, though. While I still need the moon to waterbend, I also draw my powers from the water spirits La and Tui. They blessed me when I was born. I was never supposed to be a waterbender," I tried my best to clarify, but truthfully I didn't know a whole lot about the water spirits. From time to time during my meditation, I've entered the spirit world, and have been able to speak to Tui and La. But this only happens rarely, and the two spirits have never explained how, or why, they actually chose to bless me.
"I think I get it," Aang said as he, too, slowly tried to wrap his head around it. "I've talked to spirits, you know?" Aang said, which sparked my interest. Aang continued to explain how he went to the spirit world during the winter's solstice. As we paced away from the ice palace, Aang told me the story of all his adventures that he had been on with Sokka and Katara. It sounded like the trio have a lot of fun on their adventures, and I was secretly jealous; I had never had a friend group. In fact, I have never had any friends other than Kyana. Nonetheless, I gladly listened to the young Avatar's stories. Throughout Aang's story, though, there was one name that I couldn't get out of my mind.
"Sorry, who did you say had been hunting down?" I asked Aang to clarify, which he gladly did.
"Prince Zuko, the fire lord's son, and Admiral Zhao, also of the fire nation," he explained. Admiral Zhao. I knew I had heard the name somewhere, and every time Aang had said it I had felt a sick feeling in my stomach. Something about the name felt wrong to me, though I couldn't explain why. Nonetheless, we were getting to the end of our walk, so I tried to ignore the strange feeling towards that name. Before we parted, I came up with an idea.
"There's an ice sheet near the entrance gates here that gets really quiet at night," I explained to Aang. "This evening, once it's dark, meet me there and bring your friend Katara. I'll teach you guys waterbending,". I saw Aang's eyes light up with joy at my offer.
"Really? You'd do that?" he loudly asked, and I motioned for him to be quiet.
"Yes, but you guys can't tell anyone, okay?" I begged. Aang nodded and made a zipping motion at his lips before grinning. We both said our goodbyes and went our separate ways for the remainder of the day.
Once evening had come about, I snuck out of my house silently once more. I had informed Kyana that I would be training Aang and Katara tonight, and she completely understood and was excited on my behalf. She knew that teaching the Avatar was a dream come true for me.
As I arrived at the ice sheet, I noticed that Aang and Katara were already there waiting for me. When they saw my arrival, they ran up to me excitedly.
"(Y/N)! Thank you so much for offering to teach me!" Katara exclaimed, and I smiled warmly in return.
"You're very welcome," I told her. "We may have rules and regulations in our tribe, but that doesn't mean they aren't stupid,". The pair smiled widely at me, and we began the training session. I quickly noticed that Katara knew some waterbending basics, but her form was a little off on some moves. I could tell that she had a lot of waterbending potential, more than any of the other guys that master Pakku taught. I spent a while teaching her and Aang the proper stances and motions for the moves they already knew. All three of us were having a great time, and were constantly smiling and laughing at each other. After a while, Aang wanted to try and teach Katara the water bullet, the move I had taught him earlier in the morning. He took an orb of water from the river next to us, and expertly shifted in around in front of him.
"(Y/N) said this move is all about fluidity," he instructed, and I gave a quick nod of reinforcement. Aang then passed the stream of water to Katara, who controlled it.
"I got it!" she enthusiastically said with a look of glee on her face. Suddenly, it was replaced with a look of shock as the stream of water rapidly flew away from her and up towards the sky with force. I was instantly confused as to what had happened; Katara certainly had a lot of potential, but she surely couldn't be that good already.
"That was amazing!" Aang shouted, though Katara still kept the look of confusing on her face.
"That wasn't me," she said in disbelief. The two of them looked at me, as if expecting me to reveal that it was me who had done it. I slowly shook my head, my brain still churning to discover what had happened. It immediately became apparent what had occurred when we heard the sound of the water turning into blades of ice, which daggered into the ground. I looked to my left, and my heartrate instantly doubled when I saw master Pakku staring at us all with a look of pure fury. Aang and Katara soon noticed him, too. My body filled with heat as I realised that we had been caught. I opened my mouth to try and say something, but no noise left my mouth.
"We were just showing Katara a few moves," Aang desperately bargained with Pakku. The angry look on Pakku's face remained clear, and I knew that we were about to get into a lot of trouble.
"You have disrespected me, my teachings, and my entire culture," he spat with a look that could melt the entire North Pole. I opened my mouth to try and say something to calm down my teacher.
"Master Pakku, I-" I began to speak, but he quickly shot down my words, and returned them with something that instantly turned my blood to ice.
"You two are no longer welcome as my students,"
Word count: 2400
(A/N: Thanks so much again for reading this chapter! I still have 3 more chapters already written and ready to release. Chapter 4 is a bit of a longer one, and I'll be releasing it on Sunday. As always, I'd love to hear some feedback and questions! See you guys on Sunday! -JetDragon09)
Edited on 8th March 2024. Original word count: 2173