A Guide to Shadow Bending

Chapter 5

Lightside

Light Benders:

All Light Benders are born with black hair, nothing unusual about that, right? Wrong. The Light Benders are born with white tips on their black hair, and as they grow older the white spreads and becomes more noticeable, covering the entire top layer of their heads. Or if it is a girl the white starts at the tips of their long hair and goes up till it reaches about at their jaw. Shadow Benders are similar, they're also born with black hair but their colors are more blended than Light Benders and have more of a variety. To tell if someone is a Shadow Bender might be difficult but not impossible, one way is when the sun or any light reflects on their black hair it reveals a colored tint or shine, some Shadow Benders may have black hair and when the sun shines on it it looks red or even blue, or green, any color really. 

 Light Benders eye color ranges from a very pale green to a dark orange. Most unusual. Shadow Benders eyes range from black to a deep mahogany or blood red and anywhere in between. Some Shadow Benders even have dark grey eyes or eyes the color of our modern day jeans. 

Light Benders have a special feature no one else has; they can feel people's emotions they know what you're going through. Shadow Benders are telepaths, they can hear each others thoughts clearly. But, any other type of benders thoughts aren't heard as clearly and some parts of the mind are completely blocked. Shadow Benders cannot read non benders thoughts at all. 

The Lightside:

Just like on Shadowside, Lightside has creatures that taught the Light Benders as well, Lightside seems much more normal to outsiders than does Shadowside. 

                Lightside forests

In the forests of Lightside it seems to always be fall, or autumn. The leaves of every tree on Lightside are a yellow color, orange, or reddish. And the bark of every tree ranges from that of the paper birch to a light colored maple. Light Benders are vegetarians just like Air Benders are vegetarians. Shadow Benders diet however consists of mostly animal products, meats, dairy, eggs, etc. if you were to see an aerial view of the Yin & Yang island you'd make note that Lightside is full of farmlands and crops, gardens and one big city in the 'center' for the people to sell their veggies whereas Shadowside has cities scattered around and tons of animal markets and meat stores and farms where they raise animals for meat. 

                 Light Stallion:

The Light Stallion is like the Lightside's version of a ShadowHorse. It's mane and tail are also made of an eternal burning flame and is the same as the ShadowHorse except it isn't rare and it's body is white in color and has golden or pale pink eyes. The Light Benders couldn't learn to make their light into a flamelike substance (it being too close to Fire Bending) but they did learn other bending abilities that make up for it. 

             The LightPhantom

Just like Shadowside's Shadow Phantom, the LightPhantom is the creator of all things on Lightside, he gave all the Light Creatures all their abilities to bend light in different and unique ways. And in turn, these creatures taught the people to bend light. The ShadowPhantom and LightPhantom are exact opposites. ShadowPhantom is anti-social and remains in his phantom form but the LightPhantom is very social and bends the light to make it seem as if he is a real person. 

The LightPhantom is the Good Samaritan. He is the kindest thought-to-be-person ever. He goes around in his disguise as a real person and delivers what we need most, if you're looking for your lost son who might be trapped in a well or a warehouse the LightPhantom will come to the searchers and drop the sons location without them even realizing. He'll suggest things like, "oh I saw this old warehouse on 5th street and I think it's for sale, weren't you looking for a warehouse to buy?" And then you'd decide to go and look there and ta da! There's your child. (Cheesy example I know but eh, who cares?)  he'll give you hints and suggestions, but only enough to make you click the solution on your own. The LightPhantom goes around and gives money or food to the poor and help the people of Lightside. The result is Lightside is doing well for themselves. People don't go hungry, children don't go without homes, it's all part of the LightPhantoms plan to protect his 'people' or creations from harm. And to keep them happy. 

          The White Floppy Deer

Strange name yes, but the White Floppy Deer resides in the forests and meadows of Lightside it's white (duh) with a cream colored belly and legs, it is a mix between a hare and a white tailed deer. They have long floppy ears like a bunny, and a short fluffy tail, when it stands upright it seems like a normal deer with long ears, but it can also crouch down like a rabbit. And it just looks like a giant rabbit sitting there. Twitching its ears and doing.... rabbit stuff. They also have two buck teeth like a bunny and the males have antlers. The Light Benders learned Light Speed from these creatures. 

Light Speed is a special technique that allows the light bender to bend the light a special way and run at the speed of light *wink wink* 

The bender would just take up his hands and bend the light forward, then jet their hands backwards and it shoots them out and they can run very fast. (Hint: look up the speed of light, that my friend is how fast they go ;) 

                     Dolphins

Shadowside has whales. Lightside has dolphins. :}

These dolphins roam the waters of Lightside and love to help the fishermen catch their fish, or simply ride along side the boats as they move along. The dolphins are white in color, and in the sun glint gold-ish. They also have bright blue or turquoise eyes. 

The Light Benders learned to use Light Fins from these creatures. The dolphins don't have tails like regular dolphins do, but they bend light to make a tail for themselves and swim happily with it. So, with close observation the Light Benders watched the dolphins and learned to make these fins for themselves so they can repel through the water faster than people can swim. 

     Other Light Bender Inventions:

The Light Benders also taught themselves a few tricks. Since they're all big plant eaters they'd need lots of plants, and for them to grow quickly. So the Light Benders worked up a technique that if they bend the light down on their plants they will grow at unnatural speed and therefor Lightside became one of the biggest food suppliers to the rest of the Avatar World. But when they allegedly went extinct they quit shipping food so the world got its own sources. 

 Yin Yang creatures: 

The Shadow Benders have Shadow Dragons as you've read, Light Benders have Tigers. 

These tigers are black with white stripes instead of the other way around. They have unusually large fangs that might resemble those of a Saber tooth cat from the 'ice age'. 

These animals are probably the only mean animals on Lightside. Most other animals aren't shy, and would rather run away than fight. But the tiger attacks merely for pleasure, if it feels up to it. 

The tigers fangs length depends on the tigers age, the older the tiger the bigger it's fangs. Some tigers even have red or orange stripes, but the most common is white. These tigers also breathe fire. :} (ikr?) they don't breathe much fire, but still a lot. 

Their claws are like constantly burning iron, if scratched my them you could burn your face off. (Not literally but it'll still hurt like hell, so close enough) these tigers eyes are always blood red in color. They're never any different. 

The Light Benders learned the Iron Claw from the tigers, and how to make their spit into fire. (Ew) since learning to breathe fire is too close to Fire Bending itself, the Light Benders only learned how to turn their spit into a little flame. So they could catch you on fire just by spitting on you.