A/N:If it's underlined then it's being spoken in Chinese.
It was a full moon that chilly, October evening. The trees hushed and whispered in the cool breeze and the green fields were alight with the glow of the moon. But clouds loomed ahead.
Lei was practicing by the large fountain. A breeze blew by, stirring the young woman's braid and rustling her dress so that the tips gently kissed the damp grass. She pushed and pulled the water, trying to sooth her racing mind from Raven's harsh words. Slowly, but surely, a large wave began to rise into the air. Lei knew she couldn't blame the young shape shifter for the outburst. Raven was angry at the world and was expressing that through the only outlet she could find at that moment. That outlet had just happened to be the young waterbender.
The moon brought new vigor to her abilities and Lei found herself pulling the wave higher and higher. She thought being here with her own people would calm her, but it only brought on memories that she had tried so hard to hide.
The hazy memory of the day she lost her mother came flooding back. Her mother had been an airbender, one of the most peaceful types of bending, yet she was hunted down and taken with the rest.
"Māmā! Māmā!" Lei remembered calling out to her. The woman reached out to grab her, but it was to no use. The men in black pulled her back, binding her wrists and injecting her with something that would momentarily take away her abilities until they could bring her to the Leader for the permanent solution.
Lei's mother slumped forward, her body already taking the tolls from the drug. "I love you baby. I love you so much!" She shouted before being taken away.
"What should we do with the rat?" One asked, pointing a thumb over to little Lei, who was whimpering in the corner, afraid to look up for fear of being taken.
The other in black shook his shoulders. "She's clearly not a bender, so High Leader won't want her. Maybe we can come back later to... deal with her. Her and her father, once we have proof that they're mutants."
The men nodded, sending a disgusted look towards the little Chinese girl before leaving. Lei cried out, her heart aching as she wished for her mother to come back.
Her father arrived later that day from work, unprepared for the scene before him. Chairs and tables were upturned. Pictures frames overturned and broken. The leaves from the Cherry Blossom trees were strewn around the gardens like a strong wind had blown through. Panic began to set into his heart.
"Lien! Lien!" He shouted, running through the house like a mad man, his pace quickening as he saw the destruction. Then he stopped.
"Lei," he mumbled, slowly stepping towards his little girl. She turned her head to look at him, her round eyes gleaming with tears.
He crouched by her side, looking to see what she clutched in her little hands.
It was her mother's engagement locket.
"Oh, Lei. My little flower."
"At least, they did not take you," he mumbled in accented English, picking up his little girl and rocking her in his arms.
Then, there was the day she had been taken away from her father, three years after she had discovered her abilities, and ten years after her mother's death.
They were at an airstrip that a friend of her father's had owned. Lei protested for her father to come with her, but he insisted that he stay behind.
"Miss Watson, we have to go!" The pilot shouted, his thick Southern American accent coming from the cockpit in the front of the plane. Lei turned back towards her father, tears brimming in her eyes as she looked back at him for probably the last time.
Five or six men covered in the black body armor of the Anti-Benders ran onto the tarmac and towards them.
"Fùqīn," she shouted, tears finally spilling out of her brown eyes and down her face.
"Miss Watson, now!" The pilot shouted again.
Lei spun her head to look at the pilot but remained in the doorway, hoping her father would come back.
He fought off the brutes well, using his waterbending abilities to keep the men from getting any closer to his daughter, but a few full water skins only last so long. When she turned back to look at her father, the batons the men in black were wielding began to spark to life with electricity. And with their chi blocking capabilities, the young Lei watched as her father began to lose the upper hand.
He struggled to keep his ground, and with a final hit to his left arm, he was rendered useless. He fell to his knees.
"Run," he mouthed to his daughter before receiving a sharp blow to the head and landing to the ground with a thud. The men continued to jump him, raining a series of electrical stabs and blows to his back.
"Go!" he roared, sending Lei out of her stupor and into the plane. The door snapped shut and the plane began to leave the airstrip behind as a distant memory. But not before Lei was able to sneak a final glance out of the windows.
The equalists raised her father's limp body to his knees. One of them stood behind him, pulling out a silver gun. Lei watched in horror as he pulled the trigger. She cried out, pressing her trembling hands to her mouth as her father's lifeless body fell back to earth, his peppery hair now stained with red.
Lei had only been 16, and already she was an orphan, to live in a land her father had only been to in his early years.
The giant wave Lei had accidentally created suddenly fell back into the pool. Water sprang from the fountain and into the grass, leaving the pool bare.
"Are you okay?" A voice asked from behind her.
Startled, Lei turned around to see Erik watching her, his eyes filled with confusion, and a bit of well-hidden concern.
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. "I'm fine," she lied, turning and furiously wiping the tears away with her arm.
"No. You're not," he declaimed, taking a hesitant step forward before storming towards her.
Lei raised her hand to quickly wipe away her tears, but Erik seized her wrist. Lei's almond eyes widened, startled of what Erik might do.
But then he did something unexpected. His grip softened and he stopped for a moment, his free hand hovering over her cheek. Erik's gray eyes seemed to be searching for something before he slowly wiped her tears away with his thumb.
"Now. Why don't you tell me what's going on?" He asked.
Lei sighed, knowing that Erik wasn't going to let this go. He was like a dog with a bone when he wanted something. She turned to sit down, looking for a place that wasn't soaking wet.
Erik watched in fascination as she bended the water off of the edge of the fountain and sat down. He paused before sitting down next to her, his leg brushing against hers. He held back a chuckle as he saw her cheeks turn pink against her tan skin before she slowly shifted away from him.
So Lei told him.
She told him how Raven had snapped at her earlier that day, how being here had somehow brought memories back that she'd been trying desperately to pull down.
She was surprised to find that he was really easy to talk to. And a good listener. He didn't stop her to ask questions and he didn't push her to a place her mind didn't want to venture to.
"Many years ago, all of Asia had been prosperous with mutants and non-mutants, living in harmony. Each kingdom was divided by the four elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. There was even a united city, the capital, where people of all elements could live in peace, together. But after a while, those who could not bend one of the four elements became afraid of our gifts. The world was changing, and people started to believe that we no longer deserved to be in it."
Lei pulled her knees to her chest.
"You don't have to continue if you don't want to," he ventured, but the waterbender shook her head.
"No. It's okay. I want to talk about it; I need to talk about it." She let out a sad chuckle before lifting her head to looked at her companion. "I've never been able to talk about this with anyone."
Erik nodded curtly and she continued. She told him that benders began to be hunted down and slaughtered. There was one man who could take away the abilities of the gifted. He was able to block the chi inside of people so that they would no longer be able to manipulate their element and soon, the ability to bend the elements, was all but gone.
Her voice suddenly broke and pain flitted across her face. "There were the select few who were able to escape and hide their abilities away from the world." Lei sniffled before dropping her knees from her chest and standing up quickly. "My mother and father were not one of them."
Erik frowned and stood up too, taking a step towards Lei, but she waved him off. She took a deep breath and her stance suddenly turned rigid. Erik was intrigued. How quickly Lei Watson concealed her pain.
"I don't like dwelling on it," she said suddenly, as if reading the older man's mind. "There's no use dwelling on something that can't be changed. When my father found out that I could manipulate water like he could he was overjoyed, but he was also afraid that I would be found and taken away like my mother was. Reluctantly, he began training me, believing I would need to be able to use my powers one day." Lei shrugged her shoulders before turning to face him, her dark brown eyes connecting with his stormy blue. She faked a smile. "I guess he was right."
Erik's stony expression changed. His rust colored hair rustled in the cool night air. Lei could always see pain in his eyes, but now it was so much clearer.
"How did he do it?" Erik asked, his pain suddenly turning into rage. Lei sighed and turned, bending the water on the ground back into the fountain.
She would have been more frustrated if it had been anyone else asking these questions, but Erik had rarely talked to her since they'd met. Well, actually he rarely talked to anyone, except for Charles, so she took this as a gift.
"How did who do what?" Lei asked dumbly.
Erik took a step closer and clenched his jaw. "How was that monster able to take away other mutants' abilities?" He growled. The metal in the fountain began to shake as his control slipped.
"He was a waterbender." She said calmly. "Just like me." The fountain stopped shaking, and whether Erik was surprised at this statement or not, he didn't show it.
"When you are able to waterbend, you have the potential to bloodbend as well. Waterbending, airbending, firebending, even earthbending, it comes from inside you. When that chi is blocked, so is the ability." She turned back to the fountain, watching as the water sparkled against the moonlight. "That's how he did it." She paused, thinking for a moment. "I've kept up with the news in Asia. Apparently once his followers figured out he wasn't... practicing what he preached, they executed him."
The wind rustled between them, and Lei wrapped her arms around her. Erik wondered what she was thinking.
"Would you use that ability?"
She answered quickly.
"Of course not. It's very rare for a water bender to be able to do so and even if I could, it would have to be during a full moon," she admitted.
"But if it were," Erik stepped closer and pulled her to face him. "If you could manipulate another person through bloodbending." Another step and he was inches away from her. "Would you?" He asked.
Lei shook her head. "Never. To take over a person's body like that? To conform them to my will?" She whispered, wrapping her arms around her body. She looked down, her dark fringe falling to cover her eyes. "I couldn't imagine," she whispered.
Erik nodded in understanding, brushing one of his hands across her arm before stuffing his hands in the pockets of his trousers and walking back into the mansion, his head bowed in thought.
Lei watched him go before turning to watch the water as it trickled out of the fountain and into the pool, reflecting the image of the full moon.