Percy was learning waterbending.
His mom had told him to be careful, and he was! She did say he could use his powers if he was careful, but he didn't think she wanted him to use them at all. But… he was a waterbender, and he had to .
He was like Katara. She didn't have to hide her powers from everyone, just everyone outside the home, but she was hiding them for protection. And he figured from how his mom acted about them that he was also hiding his for protection.
He didn't know what the threat was though, unlike Katara, so everyone had to be considered a bad guy.
Well… anyone that wasn't like him. If there were other waterbenders like him-
He shook his head.
It didn't really matter at the moment, he only had himself at the moment.
Well, not only himself. Unlike Katara, he did have easy access to a Master Waterbender to learn from.
Katara herself.
OO OO OO OO
He may have maybe kinda snuck money from Gabe.
But he'd been careful! He'd only taken a few bills, a little at a time, and he'd snuck a few from Gabe's gambling buddies too. He was smart, like Katara was with her gambling in that episode with Toph.
You had to be smart and distract the people you were tricking, he learned that from Katara.
So he brought the group beers and food, asking mom to help him make some dip for them. Then, when they weren't looking, he'd sneak a few bills..
In the end he managed to collect enough money to buy the complete Avatar: The Last Airbender video set. And when he'd mentioned it to a neighbor they'd offered him a little old video player! They apparently got a new one and had been planning to throw it out.
It was really nice of them to give him the player and he thanked them with cookies he made.
He finally had access to his teacher, which meant at last he could start proper waterbending training.
First thing he had to do was take notes, that's what all the teachers said to do in order to learn. And he really wanted to learn this.
So he took notes, carefully writing down everything about waterbending in the show… And also the other things the other benders do, Iroh said he learned new techniques by watching other benders.
He watched the show, then watched it again, then watched it once more.
He had his notebook out the whole time and wrote down everything he saw waterbenders doing. Katara wasn't the only waterbender there, though she was the coolest. He'd learn from all of them, becoming the best ever.
And then he started using the things he learned.
First thing he did was keep water with him all the time, it was his new favorite drink. It was easy to practice moving water in a cup without anyone noticing, just little movements and spirals. He needed every chance he could get to train if he was going to be a master.
Everytime he rewatched the show he learned new things about waterbending. Things he quickly put into practice.
They were the small bits that weren't taught, just done. Lifting the water, spinning it, making shapes, pushing it as far away as possible. Freezing the water, changing the shape of the ice, even melting it again.
Making ice was harder than he'd expected, Katara made it look so easy. But it took him ages to start freezing it, and even longer to be able to control its shape.
But he did manage it. He started small, like Katara, and worked on his control till he could do more.
He did wonder why he struggled with the ice, but not the other tricks, but decided maybe it was just like how Aang struggled with Earth bending. It took extra work, but it was worth it!
He frowned watching the videos, they had to be really quick to do some of it, maybe he could practice running? He made a note to start running every week.
And he needed to learn how to pull water out of the air and plants like Katara learned from the creepy old lady who forced her to learn blood bending.
Oh! And on the note of blood bending, he wanted to learn that… eventually. He knew it was dangerous, but if he used it like Katara did, then it would be fine. It would be just for bad people… later though, it seemed tough. And he didn't want to hurt anyone.
Of course, all his fun, interesting, research and learning and practicing was interrupted by his summer assignments… and then school started again.
He was determined to be more like Katara though, who was really smart and a strong bender. He'd do well this year, the best ever.
School wouldn't know what hit it!
OO OO OO OO
School sucked.
The teachers didn't appreciate his smarts, and maybe he wasn't the smartest but he was smart! Katara was smart and he was learning from her!
He knew he was learning, he could make any shape out of water, and he could stream it, and move water around him in the shower. It wasn't much but it was working.
But school was boring , and the teachers weren't fun like Katara. He didn't understand how he was supposed to pay attention in geography when he could be making a water whip instead. The pages on the islands were kinda cool, but he didn't care about the mountains and stuff.
And then the words wouldn't work, the letters all flippy and hard to read. And the math did it too! He didn't understand how the others could tell which of the charts was bigger, the numbers didn't work like that.
kicked a rock on the playground, scowling. He hated school.
But Katara was smart, and he wanted to be just as smart as her. He was trying so hard!
He swallowed hard, ignoring the burning in his eyes.
He was trying so hard.
OO OO OO OO
Percy huffed, glaring at the paper in front of him.
He hated math, the numbers floating all around and mixing everything up. Why did they have to be so close together? He hated it, he couldn't figure them out.
He carefully wrote his work out and circled his answer. He hoped he didn't mix things up on this one.
He had to be an amazing waterbender, and to be really amazing he had to be smart. He wanted to be like Katara, and mom also said waterbenders had to work hard in school.
The Northern Water Tribe showed that, he thought. They had really tough schools (though he didn't know about the Southern Water Tribe).
But it was annoying . He bet they didn't have dyslexia like he did, and they got to practice with their hands! It was so much easier that way.
He turned in his test and sat back down to wait for the bell to ring.
He was determined to get at least a B in every subject this year. He could get over an 80 in everything. He was determined.
OO OO OO OO
He was struggling a bit to practice his waterbending.
His mom said it was okay of course, but her face always got kinda pale and she would purse her lips, he thought she was scared. He didn't know why she was scared, but he didn't like making her scared.
But there was only so much he could do hiding in his room with a glass of water, or in the shower. He needed more space, someplace with lots of water where he could actually practice bending.
He could do a little water whip (and only broke one glass of water!), could control the shape of the water (to any shape, Even a sharp star!), freeze it (and melt it again!), coat his hands in it (which Katara showed was for healing), pull a few drops out of the air (only on days it was going to rain though), dry himself off with a flick of his wrist (which was his favorite), and stop the shower water in mid-air.
But… those were all small. He wanted to do big things.
He wanted to be able to make the octopus! Or make a big wave! Or those spirals of water, or the whips that covered Katara's arms, or the shield, or stop the rain… There was so much he wanted to do, and he couldn't 'cause he had to keep it hidden.
He didn't like it, but he didn't want to upset his mom.
He would just have to find someplace that no one would notice him waterbending.
The pool? He could make it look like splashes there, or he could try to go to the rivers, but they were dirty… Well, he could go to them and practice waterbending to clean them?
He lit up at that idea, it was just like what Katara did as the fake Painted Lady!
OO OO OO OO
Cleaning the river was going strangely.
He swore he saw two weird figures in the water. One had wolfish features and a seal-like body. It was kinda scary. Especially their glowing green eyes. The other wore rags and seaweed with a big beard. His (it seemed to be a guy?) appearance wasn't as scary, but his eyes were angrier.
Neither of the two guys spoke to Percy, mind you, and he'd only caught glimpses of them. But they kept reappearing.
He wondered if they were like the spirits of the Avatar world. Did his home have spirits?
He decided not to bother them too much, they hadn't spoken to him after all.
He just focused on cleaning the water one day of bending practice at a time.
OO OO OO OO
Percy learned that the fish could talk. Or maybe he could just understand them? It was probably the second honestly, or everyone would talk about talking fish.
There weren't a huge number in the water, not of fish or other animals. But there were some.
The fish there liked to talk to each other, and once Percy had responded to one of their comments (they'd asked why he didn't just swim down to the bottom) they'd started talking to him.
The fish had a lot of gossip, including about what the locals were doing in the water. They were glad Percy was cleaning the water so much.
It made him more determined to clean it.
OO OO OO OO
It only took Percy three weeks to get the octopus technique down… roughly. It wasn't perfect, but he could raise the tentacles and sorta control them.
He really liked octopi, though he hadn't met any yet. He hoped he would one day, they were one of his favorite animals.
The wave tricks were harder, more water to manipulate.
But at least he was getting better at… fine control? He thought that was what the wolf-guy had called it before he'd vanished once more.
Percy assumed that was a good thing, so he tried to practice it more.
Fine control was apparently small details? That's what his mom said. He was getting good at that, that was what he usually did at home.
Cleaning the river was hard though. At first he'd tried to lift the stuff in the water out… but it didn't work well. So now he'd moved to lifting the water out of the river, and dropping it on the shore, then pulling all the water off of the shore without the dirty stuff and putting it back.
He didn't quite get it to work right, too much bad stuff was going back into the river, but he was slowly figuring it out.
The more he worked, the easier it seemed to be too. He guessed it was cause he was practicing it more.
Like how Katara went from only stopping rain to making a huge dome of rain!
He could do this.
Plus, he thought that the weird scary guys (spirits?) in the water were happy, they didn't glare so much anymore.
OO OO OO OO
Percy was glad that his mom worked so late. Like- he wasn't glad she wasn't around, he loved her and wanted to spend more time with her… but like.. It let him go to the rivers to practice a bunch.
Gabe allowed him keep disappearing 'cause he'd started giving him little bits of the money he found in the trash, and told him that he was working to earn his keep (like Gabe kept grumbling).
He felt bad for lying, but he needed to get better. Waterbending was a part of him!
He wanted to do his best, to be as good as Katara.
OO OO OO OO
It was getting colder now, winter was coming.
Percy was determined to not be bothered by it. Katara wasn't, she could control ice and snow.
Though she did wear a jacket…
...
Percy used the money he found in the river (after cleaning it with his super cool waterbender powers) to buy a warm waterproof jacket.
He had a normal one at home, but it wasn't waterproof. The waterproof one was the most expensive item he owned.
He was nearly out of money cause of it, but he got a big size so hopefully he wouldn't grow out of it for a while.
OO OO OO OO
There was a new figure in the river.
They didn't approach Percy, like the ?spirits?, but it also didn't disappear when Percy looked at them.
They were green, like… their skin was green. He thought their hair was black too, but it was a different texture, and the tone was off… almost blue?
They were neater than the scary spirits, but not like cooler- well also cooler- but more like… clean? They had pearls and cool armor, and… two fish tails. They were a mermaid, or a merman? He wasn't sure what their gender was. They had longish hair, and normally girls had long hair, but they were more muscley like the guys on Gabes wrestling show, but like- not big muscley-
Percy mentally called them a merperson and hoped for the best. They had two tails, which he found odd.
Did all mer… people have two tails? DId humans get it wrong? He would have to ask his new friend Elli the Eel.
The fancy merperson stayed while Percy was there, too far out for Percy to approach (he hadn't managed to figure out how to move on water like in Avatar, his ice wasn't thick enough yet). Percy decided to ignore them for now, maybe they wouldn't come back? Percy wasn't sure why they were there in the first place.
So he focused more on cleaning the river. He forced up the piles of trash, and kept the treasures. He found a few cool jewelry pieces (a very nice ring in one case). He also managed to get the rising wave trick (as he called it) figured out at last.
He was happy.
OO OO OO OO
The merperson kept coming back.
It was about a good three months of irregular appearances (he was learning big words! He'd got an audio tape of some cool stories to listen to while cleaning the river. Audio tapes were easier then reading) from the merperson before Percy was approached.
It was also February, and very much cold now.
He'd managed to get his ice float down, it was thick enough to sit on now and he was very proud, and he was starting to get good at maneuvering it. Hopefully he'd still be able to make it when it was warm.
He'd been trying to pull up a partly buried piece of trash, a big one that got stuck good, when his ice float dipped, sending him scrambling for balance.
"What are you doing?"
Percy blinked, turning to the voice that caused his ice float to dip.
The merperson cocked their head, watching Percy as he leaned on the edge.
"Um, I'm trying to clean the river?"
The merperson studied him.
"Why?"
Percy frowned, why? Uh… Katara did it… also-
"I just wanted to practice waterbending, but the river's really dirty and it's not nice so… I just thought… I just thought I'd try to clean it?"
The merperson tilted their head. Percy felt like he was being judged.
"Waterbending?"
Percy faltered, he wasn't supposed to tell anyone about it. But this is a merperson, that's not the same is it? Of course, the merperson probably just called it something different. This wouldn't be disobeying mom, right? This merperson probably already knew all about it. Plus he'd been watching Percy for months.
"You know, controlling the water… It's called waterbending in the…" Well now he felt like it was childish but, "In the TV show avatar. And it's basically what I do so…"
The merperson hummed, "In the winter?"
"Well, it's not gonna get cleaner just because the weather is colder. If I want to clean it then I have to work even when it's cold!"
The merperson hummed again, their eyes intense.
"What's your name?"
Percy shifted on his ice floe, "Percy, Percy Jackson."
The merperson nodded thoughtfully, their lips twisted down.
"What's yours?"
They blinked, studying Percy again.
"…Triton."
Percy smiled brilliantly, "Nice to meet you Triton!"
The merperson nodded, still studying Percy intently.
"Nice to meet you as well… Percy."