The Other Airbender

1

I awoke to the sound of street vendors calling out to whoever bothered to listen, hoping someone would come to buy their wares. Shops were beginning to open up, and the small village was beginning to wake up. The sun streamed through my shutters, and I could feel the rays on my face. I sighed, tiredly, willing myself to go back to sleep.

"Get up, Miko." A shrill voice pulled me back into my consciousness.

I don't want to.

"Miko, don't make me come in there, I need you to go out and get food."

I groaned and sat up slowly, and pulled on some baggy pants and a green tunic.

"I'm coming, Mom," I called out halfheartedly as I made my way out of the room, "What do you want me to get?"

"A loaf of bread and some apples and..." My mother trailed off, eyeing the small box of coins in her hands, which, nowadays, was always almost empty, "..a fish."

As I made my way towards the door with the money, and started pulling on my boots, I heard my Mother calling out to me;

"Remember not to use your bending."

I just scoffed at her words, as I heard them on a daily basis. Stepping out the door, I sighed, again. Every day was the same boring, repetitive routine. I was tired of it, nothing ever changed. The small earthbending village where I grew up in was all I had ever known. I had never really gone elsewhere, not that I could. My family was poor, and it was just my Mother and I after my grandmother passed away, leaving us with nothing. After the fire nation took over our village five years ago, there's been hardly enough money to survive, everywhere is so overly controlled, and everything is only for the benefit of the fire nation. I hated it.

I knew my Mother made me go out of the house every day to avoid run-ins with any fire nation tax collectors, probably because she knew I couldn't stand to let them take take our money away from us each week knowing we were powerless to stand up to them. They just used us and everyone else in the village.

My Mother couldn't bend, but my Grandmother, and my Great-Grandmother were both airbenders, like me. My great grandmother somehow escaped the mass air nation genocide and made a life for herself in the Earth Kingdom, where she had my grandmother, and so on and so forth. None of the men seemed to stick around for very long, so I just assumed they were all unimportant, because who would just leave their partner once they have a child? Jerk move, honestly.

Both my Mother and my Grandmother were against airbending, which of course, they had made sure to drill into my head every day. They said airbending was a burden and I should never use it, unless I was looking for a death wish. For someone who seems to hate it so much, why bring it up every day?

As I wove past the vendors and the carts carrying heaps of fruits and vegetables, I picked up what my Mother had asked of me. As I started for my way home, I hesitated, before turning and walking the opposite direction, towards the outskirts of the village, and the sea cliffs. My Mother wouldn't miss me for an hour or so. I knew she didn't hate me, but her evident distaste for airbenders, which had grown after my grandmother constantly told her how lucky she was to be a non-bender and how much of a 'curse' airbending was, was sometimes too much to deal with, and somehow it got increasingly worse as I got older. I didn't want her constant reminders of how I shouldn't use my bending every second of the day. Why can't she just see that airbending isn't so bad? There's nothing wrong with it.

I was slightly out of breath as I reached the edge of the cliffs, my basket of food in hand. There was a secluded space on the cliffs, between two large boulders, that blocked the villager's view, and also the view from behind. I had started coming here to practice airbending, because even after I was told it was a bad thing, I could't help it. It was a part of me and I didn't understand how I could just, well, not use it. The only thing that was dangerous was if someone at sea was to spot me, which was highly unlikely. It was isolated, and there was enough space to move around somewhat freely, and it was peaceful to watch the ocean tides pulling in and out.

I taught myself airbending moves by watching the firebenders in the village, and studying their movements and adapting them. It just made sense to me. I could easily punch or kick using my bending, and manipulate air quite easily. I could also use my bending to suck objects towards me, and make small air vortexes to with my arms.

And recently? I've been teaching myself how to fly.