A Court of Shadows and Starlit Song

Chapter 1: Figuring Things Out

   I looked around where I was in the forest, it seemed to be empty but I could hear birds and insects and it seemed to be the middle of the day so I guessed I was fine for now. Honestly this setting could be almost any of the fictional universes I was obsessed with so I figured that I wasn't going to be figuring out that particular mystery anytime soon.

   I am by no means a person who has any idea of how to survive in the wilderness outside of what I had learned about in Girl Scouts which was barely more than how to build a fire and pitch a tent. So I figured now would be a good time to test my powers.

   I walked over to the river, deciding to start with seeing if I have basic elemental powers. I reached my hand towards the water and kinda did the push and pull thing Katara did in Avatar the Last Airbender and my eyes widened as the water moved to my will. I smiled and willed it to shape itself into a dolphin and swim through the air around me and I squealed with glee as it did exactly that. I then wondered if I could turn it to ice and concentrated on making my water dolphin turn to ice and slowly but surely it turned to ice. I willed the dolphin back to water and put it back in the river.

   I turned my back to the river and focused on the ground and I stomped like Toph did, willing the ground to raise up and make a tent shape and I jumped back as it did exactly what I wanted. I stared in awe at my new bit of shelter. I felt genuine excitement for the first time in forever. I decided for the next element I should probably do a more controlled experiment. So I set about setting up a campfire, gathering logs and sticks after using my earth bending ability to make a little circular pit for the fire.

    After gathering dry logs, sticks, and leaves I stacked it up like I learned in Girl Scouts and double checked that it was okay because I didn't want to deal with a forest fire. I breathed and tried to summon fire and at first nothing happened. I tried imagining a small ball of fire between my hands with the molecules speeding up to create friction. I focused hard and slowly but surely I felt the air between my hands heat up before a small flame appeared and I very carefully lit the twigs and leaves in my fire pit.

   "Okay, so fire took me a bit longer to get a grasp of, makes sense, I am more drawn to water and earth and I was working without a source for the fire." I muttered to myself, staring into the flames as I willed it to grow into a good size fire that I didn't think the wind could extinguish. The last basic elemental magic I have to try is air but how to test it?

   I thought about it and looked at my shoes and the idea struck me. I took off one of my shoes and tossed it about 5 feet away from me. I sat down next to the fire and started to focus on having the air pick up my shoe. I took deep breaths and imagined a ball of air forming around my shoe. Nothing happened at first but then my shoelaces started to move and the shoe slowly started lifting and spinning slowly. I smiled slowly and tried making it move towards me. It flew too fast at me and hit me in my chest.

    "Fuck!" I shouted, rubbing my chest where the shoe hit me, glaring at my shoe "You're an asshole." I told the shoe then picked it up off the ground and put it back on.

   "So I have all the powers of the avatar. What else can I do?" I thought about it and looked around my little campsite and figured that maybe I should try seeing if I can summon some small things.

   I held out my hand, palm up and closed my eyes and thought about a knife, how one would feel in my hand and willed it to be in my hand. I felt something drop in my hand and I closed my hand around it and opened my eyes and there was a knife in my hand. My eyes went wide and I stared at it for a minute with awe before a huge grin spread across my face and I decided to try summoning other things.

   I put my knife on the ledge of my fire pit and decided to only do essential items for survival for now. I attempted to summon a tomahawk and one appeared in my hand seconds later, just the right size for me and perfectly sharpened. Next, I summoned a sleeping bag and I laid it out in my shelter along with a pillow that I summoned shortly after the sleeping bag.