Chapter 52 - My SI Stash #52 - In A Darker World by Gin-San needs his parfait (Avatar: Last Airbender) (2/2)

Until I met Yue. That was the worst day of my life.

Most of the events weren't even my fault. (Unless you consider everything that is somehow connected to my birth my fault, which, taking that further would mean everything is everyone's fault, simply for existing, living and breathing.)

I was about ten years old, on the run from an enraged orderly and being chased by some of the warriors currently close by, when this cl_u_s_ter of people appeared form around the corner. I managed to avoid them by surfing up the wall above their heads and sped on. The looks on people's faces when I do the unexpected are my favourites. I crossed several courtyards with pretty fountains and made my way towards the main canal where I'd be able to lose my pursuers in the crowd. I'd spend the night at a friend's place, as was protocol by now, having left my parents a note. Rarely did they bother to scold me any longer.

The thing was, my move had been anticipated by the warriors and I only barely managed to avoid the one waiting for me by surfing across the smaller canal. That had been what I'd intended, at least. A longboat was blocking my path. I decided to go over.

Only, I miscalculated again and landed on the edge of the boat instead of the ice plate I'd formed in preparation for my manoeuvre. The boat tipped… and spilt its passengers into the canal.

Not including me. I faceplanted into my ice plate.

Bloodied nose or not, I was a bender and I was responsible for this, so I fished the two people, a man and a girl, out with ease, got all the water off of them and prepared to run, when Pakku showed up. Which was how I ended up before the chief. On my knees, apologising. Because it was his daughter I'd dumped in the canal.

It all wouldn't have been so bad, if Pakku hadn't threatened to stop teaching me and to make sure no other Masters would teach me if I continued to be such a major pain in his arse. He didn't use those words, but with how often he threw the words 'embarrassment', 'unruly' and 'irresponsible' out there, I got the impression that that was what he would've been saying if he wasn't so proper. Of course, because waterbending tricks aren't so easy to learn on your own in the beginning – believe me, I tried – I acquiesced. I didn't grovel, because that'd just be so much worse and Pakku wouldn't believe it for a second, so I pouted a lot and acted like this was a big deal for me to agree to.

Not to be mistaken here, it was. Kind of. But I never put too much stock in my pranks, it was just a funny habit by then. And, I figured, maybe Pakku'd take me on another one of those camping trips where he told me stories of his ancestors and their great deeds. Where I learned to survive in the ice, and feeling out the temperature and aggregate phase of the water around me. If I didn't comply here, I would never have that again.

Failing as someone's student would never allow me to become a master. And the greatest freedom within our tribe was only to be had as a master. I made a choice.

All of that didn't amount to what made it the worst day of my life, though.

My father's death did that.

A Fire Nation raider killed him while he protected the fishermen he'd been guarding. None made it back. Their bodies were recovered by a routine patrol unit, which I found out was a happy occurrence. Often, people didn't get to burn their dead appropriately, but were forced to send out a boat with some of their belongings instead.

It… my mother was horrible to look after the following days.

She was devastated. I took over. I fed her, watered her, looked after the house, spoke with the well-wishers, with our extended family and friends. I made the funeral arrangements for my father to be sent out to sea, on a burning boat. I felt out of whack, but I'd had to do all of this before, for a different set of parents. Time flew by in the haze of doing this and that and another thing that needed my attention like irritating flies buzzing around my head that wouldn't be swatted away. In the back of my mind, I realised that this was what it had felt like, being an a_d_u_l_t. It was time to step back into those worn-out shoes of a past life.

Pakku wasn't much different with me. He respected the distance I needed and whenever I trained with him, or his other students, they did not become part of the buzz. They remained as starkly focused within my perception as they ever were.

Once I had settled into things with caring for my near-catatonic mother, I treated Pakku's teachings more seriously, in the sense that I would be required to fight at some point. I hadn't forgotten about the coming invasion and the Avatar. I'd just pushed it out of my mind. Though with my father's death, I learned to fight instead of to bend. There is a stark difference between the two.

Reminded of the harsh reality of this world's war, I began to experiment with what is possible to do with bending. I'd decided to find the limits and shatter them.

What good was a second life, if I didn't go beyond what I'd already achieved, after all?

More, even with Pakku's disapproval, I asked Yugoda to teach me healing. I wasn't particularly good at it. But I learned how to unblock chi and chakra pathways that I remember that one girlfriend of Azula's being able to block. I learned how to heal burns and open wounds. Internal damage was harder and at some point I figured enough was enough. Yugoda agreed.

She had a student, Buniq, whom I seemed to have offended somehow. And yet, she agreed to tutor me in some of the less-easily grasped techniques. I did not understand why, until she asked me to reciprocate. This was dangerous. If I was caught teaching her, a woman, to bend and fight I would never become a master. Perhaps I would even serve some kind of sentence that would place me outside of the city almost permanently.

But she was determined. And I was unable to tell her no. The rule-breaker inside of me would always win if presented with an opportunity and pretty eyes.

I even kept up my sporadic warrior training and I wasn't half bad with a sword, but bending came so much more naturally. Hahn, the son of the Captain, made sure to remind me of that at almost every turn. He and I had had a kind of amicable rivalry going on since that fateful day when I'd had to promise Pakku to behave. He'd idolised my father for some reason and thought I was a bad excuse for a son. Or something. (That something being his dad being a wonderful example for a man who would use the death of his wife as an excuse to hate his offspring and my father had always been kind and fair to Hahn. He'd probably have liked to trade.)

In some misguided notion that I needed to learn patience, Pakku tortured Pai Sho into me. I figure at least I can contact the White Lotus if I'm ever in trouble. I also got the feeling that Pakku felt I needed some more parental guidance. But, at this point, I was probably of an age with him, mentally. So I began to treat him as more of a friend than a teacher. The familiarity of a person who attempted to understand the kind of man he was did his countenance some good, although he rarely showed it.

When I turned fifteen, Pakku decreed I was ready to be my own master. Which would've been fine, if I hadn't been stationed in the palace so often. Yue hated me ever since the incident with the boat, and we did not need to see more of each other.

Yue herself didn't hate in a very passionate manner, but she was very good at displaying how she felt about me. Her dad and I got along fine, though. I swore never to disclose what happened on Yue's sixteenth birthday when Arnook and I sat to the side and got drunk. It was hilarious and I will treasure the memory forever. Needless to say, Yue did not like our friendship, but really, what did I care?

Pakku and I still sparred together. He'd grown fond of me over the years, the sucker. Also, the other masters could hold their own against him, but we both knew I could give him a run for his money, even though he had decades of experience on me.

It was after one such spar that I returned home to an empty house. My mother had had an accident, falling and splitting her head open, dead on impact. Which just… I'm glad I wasn't the one to scr_a_p_e bits of her brain from the ground.

I had a rough few days after that. Got drunk a lot. Picked fights with Hahn a lot. Steered clear of Pakku and Arnook, though. Didn't want a pity party. I got one in the form of a neighbouring girl, though, which wasn't so bad. I forgot for a while what I was doing.

Surprisingly enough, Hahn got me back on track. Broke into my house one night, shooed the girl out of my bed and got me to sober up. Lectured me about spirits know what. (My father, mostly. My responsibilities second mostly. The girl only once.) I told him to go shove it and just propose to Yue, to leave me to it. He did. After he wrangled a promise out of me to live up to my father's expectations and pride.

Pakku said nothing when I reappeared as though nothing had happened.

Arnook didn't either, but we shared a drink in my parent's remembrance.

Yue… well, she was a little more sympathetic, but that was the extent of it.

Life went on. I did my duties, I went on patrols, and I lived.

And then, when I turned seventeen, the Avatar came.