spark || lin beifong

Chapter I - Introduction Part 1

Telepyleia has always been a curious girl. She wonders and observes, prioritizing the need for answers before anything else. Question after question comes after each answer given, and it was only a matter of time before the people around her run out of answers to satisfy her. She was very curious, that much was true, maybe even to a fault.

It started with the simple things. Like why is the sky the color that it is right now? Why does red come out from the skin when it hurts? Why do the stars show up in the dark and where do they go when the sun comes up?

Her parents were there to feed these questions with answers. It was simple enough to explain to a child, but with Telepyleia, it was a neverending loop of questions.

"The spirits made it that way."
"But why?"
"They made the sky in the way the saw it fit for it to cover the whole of the earth with it."
"How did they know it was the color fit for covering the earth?"

"That's blood, Leia, and it flows through you and keeps you alive."
"Why does it go out when I get hurt?'
"Because when you get hurt, an opening is formed in the skin. When it gets deep enough and the opening reaches the place where the blood is in, it ends up leaking like water in a faulty waterskin."
"Will it all go out?"
"No, the hole is small enough that not much gets out before the opening closes itself again."
"How long will it take to close again? If it doesn't stop, will I keep losing blood and end up like a squished sea prune?"
"It depends in how big it is, and no, you won't become a sea prune."

"They don't disappear and run away. They're still there."
"Why can't I see them?"
"The sun is too bright and shines much brighter than stars, so they blend in with the brightness of the sky which is lit by the sun. And just because you can't see them, it won't mean they're not there."
"They're just hiding?"
"Sorta like that."
"Why?"

And then, she started schooling. It was the teachers' turn to catch and answer her continuous barrage of questions. Remarkably, it seems as though she has no need for for them, seeing as she seemed to figure these out on her own and propose her own theories and hypotheses on the matter.

"They said that in other parts of the world, the sun and moon rise and set everyday. How come it takes 6 months before the sun and moon rise here?"
"Uh, well-"
"Oh wait! I think I sort of get it. The Earth is round, isn't it? We're at the tippy top of the rotation axis, so it makes sense that the sun would just look like it's rotating around us. But! How would that explain the six month switching cycle?"
"Oh, you see-"
"...If it was switching between darkness and light every six months then maybe we're tilted! The axis is tilted, teacher!"
"Uh, yes! Maybe. I don't know. I've never thought of it that way."

"I think I got it! I know that the elders keep saying that the sky is the way it is because of the Spirits that created them, and I respect that they think that, but it's gotta be something else! Why blue? Why does it match the sea's color? Or! Maybe the sea simply reflects the color of the sky! Anyway, so back to the color of the sky..."

Soon, the leading scholars of the south had taken Telepyleia under their wing, not that it did much to quell her thirst for answer. At the age of twelve, she had scanned through every book, scroll, and drawing that was kept in the South Pole's knowledge sanctuary. Her masters and teachers could not do anything about the never ending river of queries that were left unanswered.

That was how Telepyleia found herself in front of her parent's room, a month away from turning 15, a glass of water in hand, and nerves engulfing her every sense. She takes a deep breath, looking out the window across from her parent's doorway to see the moon, full and bright. A feeling of rushing energy then filled her, reminding her of her ever-present ability of bending. She knitted her brows together, shaking her currently conflicted thoughts of her ability. It was never her interest to learn of the mastery of her element, but that never stopped her from exploring the limits of her power. Having read the vast expanse of the library, she'd stumbled across the concept of bloodbending. She knew little of it, only that it was illegal and only the most powerful of the waterbenders could achieve it. However, Telepyleia thinks, bloodbending is only illegal in the premise that you would do it to another entity or individual and hurt them in the process. If, let's say, that I do have the ability to bloodbend and only do it to my blood, would it be considered a crime?