waterbenders can / if they will apply themselves / learn the healing arts

[roc_on]

Beila studies waterbending, and when she has the basics (waves, ice, the water whip, other relatively simple forms) she's permitted to specialize in healing.

Later on she'll be able to volunteer at a hospital and get her practice in that way, but to start, her teacher advocates practicing on oneself - just a few times, to get a feel for what one's healing bending is doing on both ends at the same time. This dojo produces more and better healers than most, so Beila's inclined to agree with the practice. It's only a few minor injuries, the teacher will be right there to patch her up if Beila doesn't manage the trick by the end of the lesson, and - it's not like she minds, in the right mindset.

Beila gets this faster relative to other students than she did the ordinary waterbending forms. The teacher says she has a natural aptitude. Over the course of her three-hour lesson she heals several burns (these are the easiest injuries to handle with waterbending) and then moves on to slicing her palm shallowly and then pressing healing water into the cut.

It's almost meditative, almost hypnotic. The teacher is satisfied she doesn't need immediate oversight and has gone to see to another student; Beila loses track of time. She's sitting in the dojo courtyard with her bowls of water (one bloody, one clear) and slicing her hand open again at the time her boyfriend is supposed to pick her up.

Comments

[roc_on]

Beila doesn't notice him right away. She holds her hand over the blood-tinted bowl and pulls up a blob of water from the clear one. It glows when it heals; she tilts her head back with a relaxed hmmm. When the cut is gone she lets the water drip into the bowl under her hand.

Then she notices him.

"Oh, hi! I finally got to healing lessons," she says with a bright smile.

[thinklikethis]

"...I can see that!" he manages after a second or two. "Hi."

[roc_on]

"Did I spook you? It's all very safe, Shifu Hayaka is a master healer if I messed up somehow and besides I'm apparently really good at this."

[thinklikethis]

"I am maybe a tiny bit spooked," Dao admits. "But I'm glad you're really good at this!"

[roc_on]

"Yeah! After today there's supposedly no added benefit to continuing to practice on myself instead of other people except that I'm, you know, convenient, so I'll be volunteering at a hospital for a while, which'll be the first real usefulness I'll get out of anything Avatar-related."

[thinklikethis]

"Congratulations, I guess!"

[roc_on]

"Thanks! I'll go dump these bowls and we can go dance." Off she traipses with the bowls, and then she comes back to hold hands with him. (He gets the same one she cut.)

[thinklikethis]

Dao squeezes her hand gently.

[roc_on]

The dance club is walkable distance from the waterbending dojo; she doesn't bother to whistle for Liqing. "How's your afternoon been?"

[thinklikethis]

"My afternoon has been pretty good."

[roc_on]

"Do anything cool?"

[thinklikethis]

"Not as cool as you!"

[roc_on]

"Yeah, but I already know what I've been doing for the past three hours."

[thinklikethis]

"Three hours, really? Doesn't it... you know... hurt?"

[roc_on]

"The healing part actually feels really pleasant! And it was only little injuries, anyway. I can handle it." She looks like she's considering saying something else, but appears to decide against it.

[thinklikethis]

"...Pleasant? Really?"

[roc_on]

"Yeah, I was surprised too, I've never been badly injured enough to get water healer attention," Beila says. "But it does. All cool and soothing."

[thinklikethis]

Dao considers this.

Then he says, "Wanna practice on me?"

[roc_on]

"You wanna see what it feels like? I can do that, although you'd only be useful practice if you were really wrecked, now I know how to do the simple stuff... Don't have the knife anymore, it's the dojo's... I know the water whip, a little one would do a shallow cut?" she says, thinking.

[thinklikethis]

"Yeah, sure!"

[roc_on]

Beila pulls out her water bottle, and threads a bit of water from it. "Pick a hand," she says as the water sways like a cobrapython.

[thinklikethis]

He offers his left.

[roc_on]

The water swats down across his hand and opens a little cut, nothing serious, barely bleeding. Beila then forms the same water into a blob.

As advertised, it's cool and soothing, like pouring chilly water over a burn or kneading a tense muscle or scratching an itch.

"See?"

[thinklikethis]

"Nice," he marvels, and hugs her impulsively.

[roc_on]

Hugs! Yay! "Isn't it neat?"