Fire and Blood

By the River

Aera smiled as she stared into the shallow water. She watched the purple koi encircle each other as they curled and dived around one another over the smooth black pebbles of the wetland. Through the glasslike water they were somewhat skewed, the bright dancing creatures. The ripples they made twisted the view Aera saw of them ever so slightly, but she could still sight them clearly. And how beautiful they were.
She so wanted to be a fish some days...I
She sent the spear mercilessly through the glassy water, sending a heartless splash of crystal waters all over her. Hopefully she got them both, even though she had only targeted a single fish.
She brought it out of the water, and there it was. The magnificent water creature impaled through the neck, still flapping its tail ceaselessly about, trying to escape.
She grasped it firmly by the flapping body and twisted it sideways, and the spear likewise, but it a contrary motion. And in a few, strong, difficultly squirming efforts, Aera had severed the fish from its head... Or severed it from its body.... The semantics did not interest her. She had two portions of koi to add to her bucket full of nineteen portions.
She did originally have twenty portions- as she had a fish's body and head- however, at one of her moments of separating head from body, one particular fish's body kept flapping despite the lack of a brain and coerced its way out of Aera's hand, back into the water and swum with the stream. All without a head.
Thankful that this time was also a normal catch, she threw the stuff into the bucket and looked back into the stream.
The water was so lovely today... It flowed and it made sense, yet was still significantly unfathomable. Water seemed surreal in a sort of way.
The thought of the water and its motion caused Aera to look over her shoulders. She pushed herself onto her tiptoes to try and see over the knoll. She wanted to spot if anyone was around.
But there wasn't. They were all celebrating Avatar Day. She could hear it. The tsungi horns, drums, harps and cheering. They were all loud and clear. So Aera turned back to the water and threw her spear to the grass behind her. She separated her legs, remembering that that was were the real power in bending lied and felt the current of the water pass through her legs. She closed her eyes and breathed it all in. It was not the air she breathed in, nor the sound... But rather the movement. She took in the push of the water, then realised that it was more of a pull. She she decided to pull. Against the essence of gravity, Aera lifted her arms up, pulling a feeling with her. She pulled water.
Opening her eyes, she saw that she had taken two parts of water. Two big bulbs hovering in a fluid place by the command of her hands.
Instantly, by the feeling of freedom, Area swept up her leg behind her and she sent a bulb of water twirling like a thin dragon around her leg.
With The water still dancing around her leg, she let go of the idle ball of water and bent the twirling liquid over her head. She held the water in place, looking up through it to see the sun as a person would see it from underwater.
She grinned then dispersed the containment of water into billions of rain drops high into the air and relaxed her body. She closed her eyes still and waited.
She stood there for seconds until a rain of water came briefly showering over her.
"Not enjoying Avatar Day?" Aera opened her eyes to his voice and saw him dressed in the finest clothes he had.
"No. But what about you?"
Han mulled it over for a while, twiddling his toes amidst the soft green grass as he did so.
"Eh. No."
Aera smiled. Han's easy lifestyle impressed her. There was no person in Maobay Village that didn't celebrate the inter region Avatar Day. If you didn't, you were either fatally ill, mentally ill, dead or a cultural rebel. When they paraded those tall wooden structures of Aang, Korra, Vihn and Khan, there were no villagers found in the actual village.
"Cool news, though about the Avatar floats, by the way." Aera wondered how he read her thoughts. "Vihn and Khan this time, even though they're separate, they're holding hands."
"Really?" That was pretty clever. That was actually a pretty creative way of displaying the twin Avatars as a single reincarnation. Last time Aera attended Avatar day, she thought that after Korra, the successive Avatar had died immediately, therefore making four different Avatars since Aang inclusively. But really Khan and Vihn were the same Avatar.
Han grinned.
"Yeah... but some man tried to burn the floats down."
"Who?" she asked with a curled lip. Immediately, Han kicked his muscular self into the air.
"Me!" He brought a sweeping foot down to the ground in a flay of fire, sending a breath of curling red and orange flames her way.
Aera instinctively brought a wave of water from behind her overhead and crashing into the bank separating the river and the knoll. The thick spray of clear water shielded her from the fire. But shields could acts swords too.
Though the water was heavy and weighed a ton on her arms, she swept the wave up into a single current and sent it crashing Han's way.
His leap and roll away from the water saved him in the immediate, his black hair breaking free of his hair tie, but Aera still had a telekinetic grip on it and twisted her arms fluidly, bringing the water, hurtling into Han's side and splashing him to the ground. Still yet, she maintained autonomy on the water, and so, brought up into the air above him, and crashing down again into him.
"You're so lazy." Aera breathed and allowed for her chi to calm.
"What can I do to improve then?" he sputtered. He pulled himself to his feet, but the slipped back to the wet grass gracelessly.
"Your technique was fine, it's just that you gave me the win. You attacked me while  I had a river of water behind me. Move me away from my source. Limit my weapons supply."
Han nodded as he sat himself up on the knoll and patted the drenched ground beside him for her to sit.
Aera went up the knoll and bent a large patch of water in the ground next to Han flying in the air somewhere. But when she sat down, she still felt her linen moisten.
"How do you bend water so well? How could you learn to bend liquid when Master Tan teaches us to bend fire.
Because firebending runs through my veins.
"Because firebending runs through my veins."
"Yes. I know. But I mean... How are you better than me?"
Aera laughed. "Everyone's better than you Han." Han's hazel eyes went dim and sad. "Well... Not everyone. You're pretty good."
"But you can't even firebend. And you're still a better bender than me even without an appropriate bending master."
"Like I told you, fire-"
"-bending runs through your veins. I know, I know, I know. But just because you have a firebending dad-"
"You mean mother? And she couldn't bend. She was just Of Fire."
"Whatever. Same difference. How you're able to bend water like fire? They're two opposite elements."
Area looked to the bank of the river. She saw the bucket of fish tipped over and a spear skewered into the ground.
She then looked back at Han, his chest heaving beneath his soaked white linen. "I don't know, Han. I'm just Of Fire and Water."