𝐒𝐔𝐍&𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍 ━━━ ✧ ⋆ （ avatar the last airbender ）

━━━━━ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄. down goes the patriarchy

"Water is life. It allows life to flourish, and to heal." Grandmother's students listen intently as I go through her teachings. She stands off to the side, and I can feel her fond gaze as I move over to the training pools. "Feel the flow of energy through the body, and connect that flow to the energy within yourself."

The pool below me ripples gently with the slow movement of my hands, and soon, it begins to glow, bathing the healing huts in the blue favored by the Spirits. Water wraps itself around my palms in a familiar embrace, and the young girl whose cheeks I bring them to giggles at the feeling of the currents tickling her skin.

"Healing is more than a physical process," I continue, a small smile aimed at them all on my lips. "It is about empathy. You must understand what it means to feel pain, then take that pain away."

Once, when I was their age, I had been in the same position as these young girls. Despite my father's rejection to my pleas to learn to wield my bending as a weapon, I was so desperate to learn anything that had to do with my birthright that healing was never just an afterthought to me. Even once I had returned home, and Grandmother had deemed I didn't need much more training after all, I longed to continue the one practice I didn't need to hide away in the shadows, which is why she was quick to suggest that I visit sometimes to teach in her stead.

Movement in the entrance catches my attention, and my eyes flicker in surprise when I set them upon the owner. "Katara! Have you come to watch the lesson?"

"Well, not exactly." She shifts her weight awkwardly, rubbing her arm as a hint of anger flashes over her face. "Pakku sent me."

All at once, the realization comes to me. Sokka is not Aang's waterbending friend, Katara is. Had I not assumed otherwise, I likely would have warned her.

My expression softens in understanding. "Come. I'll teach you the basics."

She reluctantly follows me over to a separate pool as Grandmother resumes the lesson for the more advanced students, and kneels beside me as I set up the beginner's dummy.

"Once you learn the philosophy behind healing, we can join Grandmother's lesson," I tell her.

Katara looks over to Grandmother curiously as she kneels before her students with a smile. "The healing Master is your grandmother?"

"Yes," I answer, pulling off my gloves. "My mother spent all of her time here with her as she grew up, even though she was not a waterbender. Father always jokes that his heart heard the call of a beautiful maiden, but Yue and I both know it was truly her voice that lured him in and caused them to meet." My eyes glimmer gently as melancholy grips my heart. "Before her death, she would sing us to sleep whenever either of us were plagued with nightmares in the night, and the children at the orphanage would beg her to visit every day just so they could listen to her sing for them."

Yue and I had been jealous of her split attention when we were children. Now, my own visits to the orphanage have become almost tradition since my return.

"She sounds amazing." Katara smiles softly as she stares into the water. "Can I ask what happened to her?"

"The Fever took her when I was eight." Inhaling deeply, I face the younger girl once more. "But her body had already been weakening for years. And then the famine caused by a Fire Nation blockade hit, and it only made things worsen until her body broke down completely."

The blockade made it so our fishing parties could not venture beyond our walls. Animals that lived even further North than us began to thin around that time as well, which only kickstarted the famine that had taken many innocent lives.

"I'm sorry for your loss. Sokka and I lost our mother when we were young, too." Her hand reaches up to touch the betrothal necklace clasped to the base of her neck, and my own burns slightly at the reminder. I haven't taken it off since the feast. "This is all that I have left of her. She was killed in a Fire Nation raid on our village. They were looking for the last waterbender, and she gave up her life to protect me and keep me hidden."