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31_days2006-11-08 10:02 pm
sophiap.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2006-11-08 10:02 pm
[Nov. 8] [Avatar] Tell me 'bout the ocean moving in slow motion
Title: Tell me 'bout the ocean moving in slow motion
Day/Theme: November 8 - the hardcore and the gentle
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Katara
Rating: PG
The basics of waterbending came naturally enough to her--a little too naturally, perhaps. When she was no more than three, Katara happened to throw a massive tantrum (Sokka plus scissors plus Katara's favorite doll plus an impromptu haircut equaled a very unhappy Katara). The tantrum stood out in peoples memories for three reasons.
The first had to do with the volume of her screams. Katara was normally a very obliging and even-tempered child, but she had a set of lungs on her that would give even a whale-tortoise pause.
The second had to do with the way the kettle of boiling water she was standing next to suddenly and explosively boiled over in firm defiance of both gravity and probability.
The third had to do with the way the boiling water (again in firm defiance of both gravity and probability) managed to not drench and scald the screaming toddler.
The very next morning, her Gran-Gran took her to the ocean, sat her down on the edge of the ice, and told her to pay very close attention. True, her Gran-Gran was no waterbender, but she seemed to know something about them.
"I'm no waterbender, Katara. You'll have to learn from the ocean," she said, hands pushing then pulling in the air in a way that struck Katara as being oddly familiar. "Watch the way it moves, learn its moods and make them your own. The ocean is the best teacher you could ever have." If she sounded as if she was quoting someone, or thinking about someplace very far away, Katara ignored it in her impatience to learn more about this whole waterbending thing.
And so Katara watched, and she learned about the gentle but strong push-pull of the ocean. She learned how to feel it in the swaying of her own body and she learned to appreciate the ache in her arms as she used them to mimic and then alter the shifting of the waters.
Katara did well enough on her own--for a while, anyhow. Her tribe found that her ability to lift the water in gentle swells came in handy for lifting boats off of rocks and sandbars, or for coaxing water from places it shouldn't be (sleeping bags, floors, the insides of canoes) and into places where it should (kettles, water skins, down the back of Sokka's shirt).
But somehow, this was not enough. She knew she was missing something. Even with the help of the scroll she stole from the pirates, there was something she simply wasn't getting. There was some lesson she had missed.
(Learning how to heal, and remembering how cool water could soothe and restore, seemed both a step forwards and a step backwards for some reason. It was distracting her, diverting her from something vital.)
It was Master Pakku who taught her that lesson, but not, perhaps, in the way that either one ever would have expected.
There was no moment of formal instruction. There wasn't even a push in the right direction, as she'd had with Gran-Gran's instructions to "pay attention."
Pakku ordered her to apologize for wanting to learn. For a moment she considered it, if only for Aang's sake, but then she remembered the overflowing kettle and she remembered the whip-crack sundering of ice that could swallow men whole.
Challenging the old man was utterly, utterly stupid she told herself frantically, but she was caught up in a storm surge, and there was no swimming against those, only hope and the luck to keep your head above water. She finally remembered the ocean's strength. She remembered the riptides. She remembered water crashing against rock. She remembered tidal waves, and the way ice fractured like glass and became deadly in a rushing current.
It was exhilarating. And it was terrifying.
In the end though, she also remembered how the ocean would always return to calm after a storm. Then, in the days that followed, as she learned from Pakku (and he from her, as he informed her gratefully) she also remembered how the waves would both eat away and add to the ice shelf slowly across the seasons and the years.
This happened in their lessons, and it happened in the quiet after their lessons, as she told him stories about her Gran-Gran, and what she had told her about the ocean.
"I told her that, you know," Pakku said. If he sounded a little smug, it was completely understandable.
"I know," she replied, smiling.
"And did she tell you," he said, serious now, and a little hesitant, "that there is no end to the ocean's lessons?"
Katara shook her head, but other than that, she stayed silent and prim. Gran-Gran had said nothing about that, probably because she had seen no need.
"But you already know that, don't you?"
"Yes," she said in a voice that was as small as the ocean was large. "I know."
She wasn't sure when she had figured it out. Early on, maybe. The basics of waterbending had always come easily to her, but it was only now that she was beginning to understand how much she didn't know about the infinitely gentle, infinitely destructive element that had claimed her for its own.
Day/Theme: November 8 - the hardcore and the gentle
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Katara
Rating: PG
The basics of waterbending came naturally enough to her--a little too naturally, perhaps. When she was no more than three, Katara happened to throw a massive tantrum (Sokka plus scissors plus Katara's favorite doll plus an impromptu haircut equaled a very unhappy Katara). The tantrum stood out in peoples memories for three reasons.
The first had to do with the volume of her screams. Katara was normally a very obliging and even-tempered child, but she had a set of lungs on her that would give even a whale-tortoise pause.
The second had to do with the way the kettle of boiling water she was standing next to suddenly and explosively boiled over in firm defiance of both gravity and probability.
The third had to do with the way the boiling water (again in firm defiance of both gravity and probability) managed to not drench and scald the screaming toddler.
The very next morning, her Gran-Gran took her to the ocean, sat her down on the edge of the ice, and told her to pay very close attention. True, her Gran-Gran was no waterbender, but she seemed to know something about them.
"I'm no waterbender, Katara. You'll have to learn from the ocean," she said, hands pushing then pulling in the air in a way that struck Katara as being oddly familiar. "Watch the way it moves, learn its moods and make them your own. The ocean is the best teacher you could ever have." If she sounded as if she was quoting someone, or thinking about someplace very far away, Katara ignored it in her impatience to learn more about this whole waterbending thing.
And so Katara watched, and she learned about the gentle but strong push-pull of the ocean. She learned how to feel it in the swaying of her own body and she learned to appreciate the ache in her arms as she used them to mimic and then alter the shifting of the waters.
Katara did well enough on her own--for a while, anyhow. Her tribe found that her ability to lift the water in gentle swells came in handy for lifting boats off of rocks and sandbars, or for coaxing water from places it shouldn't be (sleeping bags, floors, the insides of canoes) and into places where it should (kettles, water skins, down the back of Sokka's shirt).
But somehow, this was not enough. She knew she was missing something. Even with the help of the scroll she stole from the pirates, there was something she simply wasn't getting. There was some lesson she had missed.
(Learning how to heal, and remembering how cool water could soothe and restore, seemed both a step forwards and a step backwards for some reason. It was distracting her, diverting her from something vital.)
It was Master Pakku who taught her that lesson, but not, perhaps, in the way that either one ever would have expected.
There was no moment of formal instruction. There wasn't even a push in the right direction, as she'd had with Gran-Gran's instructions to "pay attention."
Pakku ordered her to apologize for wanting to learn. For a moment she considered it, if only for Aang's sake, but then she remembered the overflowing kettle and she remembered the whip-crack sundering of ice that could swallow men whole.
Challenging the old man was utterly, utterly stupid she told herself frantically, but she was caught up in a storm surge, and there was no swimming against those, only hope and the luck to keep your head above water. She finally remembered the ocean's strength. She remembered the riptides. She remembered water crashing against rock. She remembered tidal waves, and the way ice fractured like glass and became deadly in a rushing current.
It was exhilarating. And it was terrifying.
In the end though, she also remembered how the ocean would always return to calm after a storm. Then, in the days that followed, as she learned from Pakku (and he from her, as he informed her gratefully) she also remembered how the waves would both eat away and add to the ice shelf slowly across the seasons and the years.
This happened in their lessons, and it happened in the quiet after their lessons, as she told him stories about her Gran-Gran, and what she had told her about the ocean.
"I told her that, you know," Pakku said. If he sounded a little smug, it was completely understandable.
"I know," she replied, smiling.
"And did she tell you," he said, serious now, and a little hesitant, "that there is no end to the ocean's lessons?"
Katara shook her head, but other than that, she stayed silent and prim. Gran-Gran had said nothing about that, probably because she had seen no need.
"But you already know that, don't you?"
"Yes," she said in a voice that was as small as the ocean was large. "I know."
She wasn't sure when she had figured it out. Early on, maybe. The basics of waterbending had always come easily to her, but it was only now that she was beginning to understand how much she didn't know about the infinitely gentle, infinitely destructive element that had claimed her for its own.