The Other Airbender

2

"Miko!" A rough voice startled me from my sleep. Sleep? Oh no I had fallen asleep. My Mother would probably start asking questions again. Damn it. I opened my eyes, blinking as the disappearing sun caught my eyes. A familiar, smiling, tanned face with long, soft hair falling over his headband and into his soft green eyes was grinned at me. My heart fluttered in my chest.

"Get up sleepyhead," The face said said, tousling my hair as I growled in frustration, "You fell asleep whilst airbending again."

"Stop it Haru, you know I don't like it when you do that!" I mumbled, but I was smiling back at him, a light shade of pink dusting my pale cheeks. Haru was the only person other than my Mother that knew about my bending, and we had been best friends since childhood, as we were the only children who were of similar age, and we shared everything with each other.

"Come on," He sighed, holding out his hand for me. He never really talked often, and his hatred for firebenders far surpassed mine, even though we had both given up on fighting back long ago, due to an incident. He was kind at heart, and he was always there for me, and I trusted him completely. When I didn't respond he bended a pebble and it flicked me in the head.

"Ow, Haru, what was that for?" I snapped, and stood, throwing a gust of wind at him and almost knocking him backwards.

"Hurry up, we have to go back now it's dark." He said, his lips beginning to curl up into teasing smirk as he looked down at me. "Wouldn't want poor, helpless, little Miko to be all alone in the dark now, would we?"

I shoved my knee between his legs, hard, and giggled as he grunted and bent over, giving me a death stare.

"Looks like poor, helpless, little Miko isn't so helpless after all." I declared, mocking him as I stifled another fit of laughter.

He turned around and started walking back to the village without saying a word, purposefully ignoring me. I groaned, but followed him, tapping his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I murmured, "I didn't realise the pretty boy was so petty." I heard him snort, trying not to laugh, before I felt a large ball of dirt slam into my back.

"Ok, I kinda deserved that," I muttered, before looking up to see him snickering at me.

"Wish me luck." I whispered to him when we neared my house, hoping my Mother didn't pry too much.

"Good luck!" He grinned at me again and winked. I just rolled my eyes and headed towards my house, desperately trying to ignore the feeling of my cheeks heating up and my stomach fluttering as I felt his green eyes watching my back. I pushed the feeling away.

"Where on earth have you been, Miko?" My mother asked incredulously as I slipped through the door, hoping I had been quiet enough that she wouldn't notice. I gulped and looked at her sheepishly.

"Oh uhh... I just took a walk around the village."

"For the whole day?" She countered, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, yeah?"

"You better not have been airbending." She eyed me like a hawk.

"Of course not! You know I wouldn't do something so stupid." I gasped exasperatedly. It was always the same conversations, the same routine.

Technically today I hadn't been practicing airbending, I had been trying to fly. They're not exactly the same in a sense.

Ever since I discovered an old box in my mother's room, filled with my great-grandmothers possessions, I had been set on learning to fly. There were some old airbending scrolls with snippets of airbending history, and sketches of objects and animals and some temples that were somehow related to airbending too. I had taken a particular liking to a sketch of a fluffy creature that had arrows decorating it's features and six paws, and I learnt that every airbender owned one, and they were the original airbenders. Surely then, if these creatures could fly then I could too?

Amongst the scripts and scrolls was a necklace, with a large gold locket engraved with an airbender floating in the clouds. When I'd first seen it, I had immediately been drawn to it, and it somehow felt important, like it had meaning. I figured out that I could open it, and the text inside read: let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind.

Those words had been stuck in my head for weeks, and I could never really understand what they meant. I knew they had something to do with flying, because of the engravings, and because there was a scroll that went on a lengthy anecdote about some Guru called Laghima, who apparently wrote those words and could fly. Unfortunately, he was also the only known airbender who had ever been able to fly. And he lived more than three thousand years ago.

After falling asleep that afternoon I couldn't sleep now. I sighed in frustration. Earthly tethers? What is that even supposed to mean? What void? Gosh smart people are so confusing. I rolled over, the scratchy mattress irritating my skin. The streets were deathly quiet at this hour, and since I couldn't sleep, I wanted to at least do something productive. I wasn't going to walk all the way to the cliffs, but I wanted to go outside, so I climbed onto the roof. There would be no one who would see me at this hour anyway, right?

I sat in lotus pose and breathed in deep, relaxing every muscle in my body. I needed to get it right. I needed to fly.

Earthly tethers. What was an earthly tether? Maybe it was a who. My eyes flicked open. A who? Who would be tying me down to down to earth? My Mother? No, probably not. Haru? Oh. Oh.