[ 86 years after the genocide of the air nomads.
Northern Water Tribe. The chief's personal training grounds. ]
In a large and spacious room, built entirely of ice, which usually serves for training the Chief and his protectors, a beautiful white-haired young man was now practicing. Moving across the entire field, his body fluidly performed flowing movements, and in rhythm with his changing position, water rippled through the air as if it were completely alive.
A small three-year-old girl watched this entire performance, her admiring gaze never leaving him. Her sky-blue eyes followed the boy's movements, as if trying to memorize all the techniques she saw. Even her small hands, which she held in front of her, unconsciously tried to repeat what she witnessed.
After a couple of minutes, the not-yet-man but no-longer-boy stopped his training and, smiling, looked at the little girl.
"Does the little princess want something from me?" he asked with a light smile and visible warmth in his gaze.
"Big brother, you promised not to call me that anymore," the girl said, cutely puffing out her red cheeks. "Mama asked me to call you to the table! And when will I start learning waterbending? The healer auntie said I'll become a strong bender!"
"Wait just a little bit longer, and then I'll personally start teaching you," the boy said, stroking her soft white hair.
"You better keep your word! This time I won't believe you so easily — come on, let's make a pinky promise," the girl demanded, placing her hands on her hips, trying to give herself a fierce look... which only made her even more adorable.
"Of course, of course," the guy said, clearly amused, extending his pinky for the most unbreakable oath in the world. And as soon as they linked pinkies, the boy unexpectedly lifted the squealing girl onto his shoulders and ran toward the kitchen.
In the empty room, distant childish happy laughter still echoed.
***
— POV Yuki —
The day after the birth, I woke up with the most severe body aches. It felt like yesterday I had single-handedly loaded entire train cars of bricks. And this continued for a whole month — thirty days of bed rest, when the overwhelming boredom makes you want to climb the walls.
At the same time, complete chaos was happening with my energy... I was even afraid to simply "descend" there, as it was already clear that nothing good was happening there...
That entire month I lay in a single room, under constant supervision of healers, where parents and healers looked in every day. And each time, outside observers could witness a theatrical scene called: "Mother hen fussing over her egg." I think it's unnecessary to say who played the main roles. It was clear that my parents were very worried about my condition, but often their overprotectiveness went overboard. Sometimes to send mom home, I really had to persuade her. It was good that every time Yui was mentioned — she immediately gathered to leave.
There were positive aspects to my long stay in the healers' ward. For example, lots of time for simple reflection. Comparing my little sister's birth date and her age when the Avatar arrived, it appears the canon is following more or less the scenario I already know. Of course, this might be the only coincidence so far. However, everything I've seen so far leads to one important fact — there don't seem to be any major changes. Coming up with a name for my little sister, especially something East Asian, when only Slavic and English names are spinning in my head — is very difficult. But I managed... I simply kept the name she was given in the cartoon.
And finally, after thoroughly questioning my parents, I learned the entire sequence of events that unfolded behind the ward wall while I waited in the corridor. As it turned out, Yui had weak breathing at birth, and medics fought for her life for half an hour. Most likely, seeing hope in water healing magic, my parents completely forgot about the spirits Tui and La, who definitely could have helped.
Of course, it's good that all's well that ends well, but coming into the human world, I relaxed too much — completely forgot that you can't let your guard down. And this entire situation was a good demonstration that the world is a whole heap of unforeseen events, both good and bad.
One day, lying in the ward and being on the verge of sleep, I felt someone else's emotions — faint, barely noticeable, but... definitely not mine. This uncontrollable phenomenon occurred with regular frequency, and each time they felt more distinct. I won't pretend to be a deep thinker, but it was easy to connect their source. First, the epicenter of these emotions was the Chief's Palace. Second, the emotions themselves were somewhat primitive and could change with insane speed, and third, I felt a piece of my own particle in that same direction.
Feeling Yui's emotions was quite fun. I even learned to send her mine. Often, when she was dissatisfied with something, I tried to cheer her up, and it worked. I don't know, but I have guesses why in just a couple of weeks she became even a bit dearer to me than my parents. I think I would have loved her very much anyway, but the particle of me that's still inside her seems to have simply connected me with Yui on some deeper, spiritual level.
After a month, coming home, I finally saw Yui. And I'll be honest, I realized why in the past I was subjected to such tenderness. Because simply seeing and not cuddling such a concentration of kawaii is impossible.
My parents started jokingly being jealous of Yui toward me, because as soon as I appear within her sensing range, her little hands immediately reach in my direction. All other family members are mercilessly ignored. Only I can immediately predict what she wants, and I'm also better at calming her down. You should have seen my parents' faces when they gave me time to babysit with quite contradictory expressions. They never understood the reason, so they even started reducing their work time to spend more time with her.
Now about magic. The result wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Yes, part of my energy is missing, but it's regenerating at a visible rate. Yes, because of this the fusion slowed down a bit, but the timeframe is small and by ten years I'll definitely recover. It turns out the date of complete fusion was pushed back by only six months, which isn't very critical.
Having firmly decided to develop in other areas for now — I began complicating my training, adding more strength exercises, which often brought me to exhaustion. I didn't feel very good, especially when mom didn't want to heal me, thus staging a boycott against my heavy training, but seeing the futility of her protests, she thawed and began treating me again. This body never ceases to amaze me: everything heals much faster, and all body parameters are definitely above those of my peers. Only testing this in children's scuffles was a bit embarrassing.
My parents tried to bring children of their friends for my socialization, but after just one look at the faces of my peers, not yet burdened by thoughts, and comparing them with me — they decided not to bother much with this endeavor, correctly assuming that somehow I got along with adults before.
I finished the books lying on the shelves of the palace library, now I have to run to the city one and read there. I'd like to take some home for comfortable reading, but knowledge here is very valuable, which is why library staff can calmly tell both the chief's son and the chief himself to go somewhere far away with such wishes.
I'm determined to finish with all books by twelve years old, or most of them anyway, since I can't actively practice bending yet. So I need to pump up my brains and muscles. But when magic activates, I'll be able to devote all my time to mastering alone!
By the way, from dad's library I now know purely in theory: how to properly butcher different animals, how to determine how old a carcass was, which parts can be used for healing tinctures. I know how to build ice houses for comfortable living, and I've also read many books on fortification from the Earth Kingdom. I reviewed an entire cabinet of books about waging war with the Fire Nation from past chiefs, and they died quite often then — they really paid for this experience with their blood.
The flora of the North Pole was described in a thin book that gathered dust on the top shelf. I even came to love reading records where it was just water upon water. This was even worse than some Chinese light novels, but when you have the wildest information hunger — everything stops mattering. Apparently, before, they brought absolutely everything to the repository of knowledge, somehow I came across correspondence between two lovers who lived in warring tribes.
In the city repository of knowledge, the situation wasn't much better — only there was an entire section for water benders: techniques, various masters' enlightenments, there were even scrolls with authors who found a thread that would lead to methods of blood control and extracting water from everything around us.
Yes, all materials were essentially simple reasoning — the authors didn't live long enough to confirm their research, and other masters, twirling their fingers at their temples, threw their scrolls to the very end as utter nonsense. Still, how they dislike departing from tradition here. As it seems to me, in the Southern Water Tribe they would only ask how many enemies they could lay down using these skills. [ image ]

I found another treasure in the middle of an ocean of water — one scroll authored not just by a person, but by a Person with a capital P. The author created the first healing magic, well, maybe she wasn't the first, but it's not enough to just learn, and who will reflect on the sources of these abilities and write them down for the uneducated people? And I know firsthand how this branch of waterbending is currently taught in the Healing Huts. There's more practice there, didn't manage to do it right? You'll keep doing it until you learn! They don't like theoretical justifications here, the succession of generations is still strong, when masters enlighten only personal students. [ image ]

I'll say right away the aunt was thorough, between the lines she didn't even bother to throw dirt at the politics conducted then. Calling the chief and elders short-sighted stubborn rams was also quite strong.
Having visited Wan Shi Tong's Library, she found records about energy magic. Then, drawing her conclusions, she came to other knowledge, already telling about life energy. At the end of her "journey" she found records about Chi. In the end, she called the authors of these books idiots who couldn't read each other's books... Here I completely agreed with her.
The authors of these manuscripts described and studied essentially the same thing — it's just that the first book on energy magic was written when people still lived on lion-turtles. The second author studied something analogous to the first, only already during the beginning of the Avatar era, calling essentially energy magic — life energy, which is also correct, because even in the first book the author wrote: "Energy magic is the ability to control life energy." The third author, also beginning study of this topic, already gave his own name to this type of energy. In the end, it turned out that the authors were talking about the same thing!
It turns out that when healing, the healer must add a particle of their life energy. And life energy essentially flows in each of us. Personally for me, it's similar to the notorious prana, which has the same properties. The author established in a series of statistical analyses that healers live substantially longer than even the strongest benders of any element. Therefore, she believed that every time healers exhaust themselves to depletion of life energy — they unconsciously increase its density and conductivity. As a result, this gives them stronger health and increases chances of seeing not only their grandchildren, but great-grandchildren.
And now I myself can't wait to practice healing magic, because what possibilities this opens! What if I learn to manipulate my own blood and charge it with my chi for healing? Is it possible to increase the efficiency of rejuvenation itself this way?
You could even say this is a path to making the people dearest to you long-lived. Because I definitely don't intend to leave this world until I'm really tired of it, and with opening chakras and my nature as such a hybrid of spirit and human, I should live for a ve-e-ery long time.
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Thank you for your support!!!