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(Word Count: 2,939 )
POV: Sokka
Growing up, I've accepted the fact that Katara had her “freaky magic water” abilities and that was that. Waterbending wasn't something that you could just learn. You were born with it. I didn't have it, so I could only focus on honing my abilities as a warrior of the Southern Water Tribe.
I took pride in my abilities as a warrior, but lately I've been feeling so useless. Dad left, and I was left behind to take care of the tribe on my own. Then Aang showed up and it had snowballed downhill ever since. The scale of our battles had grown so far out of my league. A single sword can't make that much of a difference anymore.
Then as we were talking to Callan after the funeral, he was telling us his story.
“I wasn't originally a bender.” He said.
He was given his earthbending. It turned everything I knew about bending on its head. If spirits could give someone bending, then would it be possible for me to get it too?
I couldn't get it out of my head. Something was tickling at the back of my mind these past few weeks. Then I remembered. It was something the moon spirit possessing Aang said to Callan. “Otherworlder. You have changed fate and saved me. Because you’ve already received earthbending, I cannot give you waterbending. So instead, to show my gratitude, I give to you my blessing. When under the moonlight, I give to you my strength. Now your bending will gain power from the moon just as a waterbender’s would.”
The moon spirit said that it would have given Callan waterbending, but he had already been given earthbending.
Could it give me waterbending too? I had to know.
Sneaking into the spirit oasis turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought. The entrance was in a courtyard that was only accessible from inside the palace, so there weren’t any guards that were stationed directly by it. I was known in the palace, and thus the two guards that I did come across didn’t bother stopping me.
In no time at all, I was back in front of the small grove and the pond with the two koi fish. The moon and ocean spirit, lazily circling each other.
I looked around. This was the North Pole, with constant freezing temperatures, yet here, in this crevice within the glacier, it was warm. One could easily take off their coats and still be warm. A small grove of trees was thriving despite the lack of any direct sunlight, except perhaps for an hour or so when the sun was directly lined up with the crevice.
I hadn't thought much about it the last time I was here, I was too caught up in the war going on, but this really made no sense. Science can't explain this… can it? It was spirit mumbo jumbo… but I'm starting to think that this mumbo jumbo was worth delving into.
We've faced an angry spirit before, and with Aang we'll inevitably have to deal with more in the future, and then there was the Moon Spirit's appearance to end the war. Then there was the Chi practice Callan's been making us go through. The point is, that things were getting stranger and stranger and I needed to better understand what was happening.
That started with the fish. I turned back to the two spirits. Not really knowing what to do, I knelt down at the edge of the pond and prayed.
“Uh, hello Moon Spirit, Ocean Spirit. My name's Sokka… I was with Aang, you know, the avatar. Callan's my friend too, he's teaching me about Chi and all that.”
I paused, unsure of how to continue. How did one ask a spirit for its blessing?
“All my life, I've never felt like I was good enough to protect those I care about and now that we're traveling with the avatar and we have to stop the Fire Lord before the comet comes and…” I had to stop and clear my throat. I was getting off topic. I bowed. “I wanted to ask for the blessing of waterbending. Please. With waterbending, I can actually help Aang and protect my sister better.”
I stayed bowed, face to the ground, for several moments. But there was no answer. I looked back up to the koi. They were still swimming in a circle around each other with no indication at all that they even heard me. My heart fell.
I bowed again. “Please, I'll do anything! I just want to help my friends! I feel so useless now, things are getting so out of control. Katara and Aang are here getting training in their bending, and in the war they were able to take down entire ships and help heal the soldiers. But I couldn't do anything! And then when Aang was taken away, I still couldn't do anything!”
I was yelling bitterly at this point. Not really with anger at the spirit, but at myself. I took a shaky breath and wiped away the tears. “I'm so sick of being left behind all the time. I want to be a valuable member of the team, someone worth bringing along. So please, what can I do to earn your blessing?”
Again, the koi fish gave no response.
Dejected, I left.
~ CatAR ~
POV: Callan
Something was wrong with Sokka. He's been down all day today, though he does cheer up when he's with Yue. That night, when the Gaang was together and I was guiding them through chi meditation, I pulled Sokka aside.
“Hey, Sokka, are you feeling alright? Something's been bothering you today,” I said.
He brushed it off, “just thinking about something, I'll be alright.”
I frowned, then glanced back over to Aang and Katara. They had already been able to sense and manipulate their Chi a week ago, whereas Sokka still couldn't sense it. “You know they’ve had an easier time with their Chi because they're benders, right? You’re a talented young man. You'll get it eventually.”
“But it's already been like 2 weeks!” Sokka snapped. “Shouldn't I have at least sensed it by now?”
“Well, sometimes it takes longer for others to grasp it. You're an energetic young man so naturally it's harder to learn to sit so still. Aang is very energetic as well, but he's spent his entire life learning how to meditate.”
But as I said that, I frowned. Was the answer just to tell him to sit down and keep trying? It obviously wasn't working for him and he was getting more and more frustrated. I thought back to the time when I was sparring with Master Piandao. There were brief moments where I nearly had him, and he would use his chi to block or move out of the way in time.
Was he using it subconsciously?
“Tell you what, my sword master, Master Piandao, was able to use his own chi when we were sparring. I have a feeling it wasn't intentional, at least at first. Why don't we spar for a bit and see if you can get a better feel for your chi that way?” I suggested.
Sokka sighed. “Yeah, okay. I don't know how much it'll help though.” He went to grab his sword.
Katara came up. “Hey, Callan, is everything alright with Sokka? He's been off all day today and won’t talk to me.”
“Yeah, he'll be fine. Just feeling a bit frustrated is all. We're going to spar for a bit to work it out.”
Sokka came back and together we went out to their courtyard, Katara and Aang stayed behind to keep practicing cycling their Chi.
As soon as Sokka's sword was drawn, I immediately attacked.
“Gah!” Sokka cried out, startled, as he hastily parried my blow. I needed to push him harder and harder to force him beyond his limits. Katara was turning out to be a great healer anyway, he can be healed when we're done.
I followed with several more attacks, each one Sokka just barely blocking, pushing him back a step. “Come on, Sokka! You’ve got to fight back! Try to hit me!”
“AAAH!” Sokka yelled out in frustration and anger, and went on the offensive. Luckily he wasn't so angry that he was wielding his sword like a club, and was still using the proper techniques.
I stepped back, focusing on parrying the strikes away. I let him vent that anger, not pushing back at the moment. When he seemed to be done venting, I went back on the offensive, this time a bit faster. I deftly guided his shorter blade aside, breaking his defense, and nicked him in the chest. It didn't actually cut him, but left a large hole in the front of his coat.
“There, you're dead.” I frowned. Throughout the spar, Sokka's Chi was only moving normally, without change. I searched through my mind for anything that could help him. Normal meditation wasn't working for him, but maybe…. my mind landed on the Wheel of Time, and Rand's flame meditation. However, using flame as an analogy may be a little insensitive.
“Let's try a little exercise as we spar. Close your eyes and imagine darkness, with nothing around but a small stream. The only thing that you should be imagining is this small stream. Now take all of your feelings. Insecurities, joys, worries, and hopes, and place them into the stream. Let them all flow away until the only thing remaining in your mind is the stream. As we spar, keep your mind on the stream flowing.”
Sokka frowned. Usually he couldn't think of anything else when fighting. “Don't worry, Sokka. We'll go slow at first,” I said.
Sokka returned to the ready position with his sword and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, I went for an obvious and slow stab in the middle. He deflected it aside, and counter attacked.
Slowly, we started speeding up. Until, when it looked like I would be leaving another hole in his coat, Sokka's Chi flowed quicker into his arms and his arms sped up to deflect my blow.
“AAHAHA! I did it! I did it!” Sokka jumped around in joy. I smiled at him.
“I'm glad that it worked. Now it's only a matter of practicing until you can do it at will.”
Sokka's grin slowly faded to a troubled frown. “I tried to talk to the Moon Spirit last night…”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise, but I let him continue talking. He needed to get this off his chest.
“When I heard that you had received your earthbending, I thought that just maybe the Moon Spirit would give me waterbending,” Sokka sighed. “But it wouldn't even acknowledge that I was there. I just… I feel like I've never been enough. Especially now. Now I'm with Aang and Katara and… I'm scared that I won't be able to protect them.”
In the show, we don't see a lot of this side of Sokka. He's always the confident comic relief of the group. Seeing him doubt himself, I sympathized. I was very familiar with feeling inadequate. I placed my hand on his shoulder.
“Sokka, you are an amazing young man. Bending or no bending, Chi or no Chi, you will be doing everything you can to protect your loved ones. That is an amazing quality not every man has. And because of that determination, you've succeeded in finding your Chi!”
Sokka perked up and his smile returned. “I did, didn't I? Can we keep practicing?”
With a student so eager to keep going, how could I say no?
~ CatAR ~
The very next morning, I rolled out of bed having only slept about 3 hours. Sokka and I had spent way too long sword fighting last night. I was fine, but I laughed as I thought about Sokka. He must be dying.
Today I would be going to Yagoda. I still haven't been able to learn Chi Healing, not even for myself yet, but today I came prepared. Sokka had his little breakthrough last night, and I was determined to have mine.
I entered Yagoda's healing school. As always, the elderly woman was there waiting. “Good morning, Yagoda.”
“Good morning, Callan. What do you have there?”
I lifted the pouch in my hands, opened it, and showed her the rich mud inside. “I took some mud from the spirit oasis, with the chief's permission of course, to see if it helps.”
In the show, Katara was gifted some of the water from the pond, and it was said to have much better healing properties than if she had used regular water for healing. It was even able to heal Aang from the brink of death. I don't know if he had actually died, which I doubted because it would have caused a lot of problems for the avatar cycle, but even then it would have been a sure death without it.
However, using his Chi Sense skill, there was no extra chi inside it. So I could only assume that it was the spiritual nature of the oasis that made it connect with Chi easier or amplified it somehow. Whatever it was, I could earthbend the earth inside the oasis a lot easier and faster than anywhere else.
“I was thinking that instead of just trying with pure Chi, to try using earthbending. Maybe the skin can absorb some of the minerals from the mud and that will allow me to heal,” I explained. “If I'm right, such spiritual earth should be perfect to help me practice at first. I also want to try a poultice of herbs if just the mud doesn't work.” I couldn't earthbend only herbs, but if I mixed it with the mud, it would allow me to infuse it with my Chi.
Yagoda's eyes lit up. “That's a wonderful idea, Callan. Though it will be hard to tell if it's working on our dolls. We'll need an actual person for this. Let's get one of the soldiers to help. They always have bruises somewhere.”
Annoda, one of Yagoda's teachers, came in at the perfect time. “Annoda!” Yagoda greeted, “could you and Callan go and fetch one of the soldiers? Callan's had a wonderful idea that we want to try out.”
Annoda looked between them and sighed. “Of course.”
Together, the two of us went down to the training grounds where some of the soldiers were sparring or practicing their waterbending. We grabbed one that was nursing a fresh bruise and headed back.
Yagoda was in the middle of teaching the younger students. “Excellent! You can bring him to the older students, if Callan's mud doesn't work out you can have them practice healing him instead.”
Annoda looked at me and smirked. “Come on then, let's see your new idea.”
With an entire classroom watching, I have the man show me his arm. It was a nasty bruise, already swelling. I spread out the mud over the bruise and, following Yagoda's teachings, focused most of my Chi along the Chi pathways in the body. I gently pushed, trying to get some of the minerals to absorb into the skin. It was slow, but it was getting there! I suppressed my excitement to not mess it up.
Gradually, the bruise’s swelling actually faded, the swelling going down.
[Chi Healing LVL 1/100]
Through the medium of mud or healing mud poultice, your Chi can enter another's body and heal wounds. Quality of the medium can improve efficiency. No medium is required in healing yourself.
+1%/LVL efficiency in using Chi to heal.
“YES!” I shouted. I earthbend the mud away and the bruise was entirely gone. “Ahahaha! I did it!”
The girls of the class all cheered and clapped. The man that I healed gawked down at his arm. “Huh, I didn't think that would work,” he muttered.
Yagoda came in, drawn in by the cheering. “I assume things went well then?”
“Yagoda, I did it! His bruise is healed!”
She sighed, with a slight smile on her face. “That shouldn’t have been possible, many earthbenders before you have had the same idea of using healing mud before you. It seems that you are truly blessed by the spirits.”
I blinked. I hadn't thought of that before. “Wait… I am. The moon spirit blessed me the night of the invasion. Could that be why?”
“What else could it be? Normal earthbending isn’t meant for healing. Regardless of the reason, history has been made here today. You may very well be the very first earthbending healer the world has ever seen.”
The Lion Turtle also blessed me, giving me earthbending to begin with, which could also be a reason why. Maybe my earthbending was better somehow? Though the moon’s blessing was more likely.
That did make my earthbending a bit unique in a spiritual way, but looking back at the skill I had gotten, it seemed like I had only just gotten the skill this time because I had finally used a medium. I really should have gotten the mud the first day…
Now that I had the skill in the system, I wondered if I could do it without any special spirit earth, or at least how it would compare to when I used normal mud. Unfortunately the only earth around these parts was from the spirit oasis.
Nonetheless, having finally gotten everything that I came to the North Pole to get, my time here was finally coming to a close.
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