the mighty spirits / tolerate no impudence / and show no mercy

[roc_on]

Beila has been volunteering at the hospital for a week now. About four percent of the population can waterbend, and all benders have to be trained some just to control their powers instead of being plagued by constant accident, but most don't acquire significant skill, and most don't specialize in healing. There is always more demand for waterbenders than there are waterbenders to be had, so Beila's working alongside nonbending and other-element doctors and nurses and techs. They start her in the burn ward, because burns are easiest and Avatar or no she's a novice, and she washes away hurts and refuses to sign autographs and takes her legally required twenty-minute breaks at regular intervals and then heals more.

The school term ends. Beila withdraws from classes. She writes an open letter about that, thanking the teachers and so on for their time and attention, explaining her decision, and she puts it up on the public-facing official Avatar screenserver that the nuns set up for her. She divides her time between classes with Shifu Hayaka, volunteer work at the hospital, intensive meditation, reading, and Dao.

She's with Dao when the earthquake hits, sitting on her roof while he does homework and she reads.

The ground shakes like gelatin, and Beila's been airbending to keep from falling over too long to react with anything other than an instinctive shove of air; but the air is sluggish, reluctant, something is wrong.

The roof has a view of the sea, and the sea is bubbling - no steam, it's not boiling, it's just angry -

And the air is too warm.

Something has the elements spectacularly agitated.

And Beila doesn't know what.

Comments

[roc_on]

"Please don't suddenly keel over, I'd be sad."

[thinklikethis]

"I would be sad too," says Dao. "Well, no, I'd be dead. But I'd be sad about being dead, if that was an option."

[roc_on]

"Just don't be too sad about being dead or you'll be a mischievous kinda ghost. Shoot for a gentle melancholy."

[thinklikethis]

He giggles.

[roc_on]

"And whatever you do, don't be angry about being dead! Especially not at me."

[thinklikethis]

"Why, would I haunt you?"

[roc_on]

"You might! It would be really inconvenient. I could not at all miss you properly if you were haunting me, being obnoxious."

[thinklikethis]

He snorts.

[roc_on]

"Better yet, be alive," Beila says, reaching up from her sitting position for a hug.

[thinklikethis]

Dao sits down beside her and hugs her.

[roc_on]

Snuggles!

"I wonder how long it'll take to repair all the damage those quakes must've done," Beila muses.

[thinklikethis]

"A while, I bet."

[roc_on]

"Yeah. I hope they get the plumbing mostly handled promptly or it will be harder for waterbenders to help with disaster relief. I wonder how far those shocks spread, if it got the suburbs much..."

[thinklikethis]

"I hope my place still has water."

[roc_on]

"If it doesn't you can crash with me for a few days, if nothing else I can ask Shifu Hayaka to teach me to separate salt from seawater, it doesn't look too hard."

[thinklikethis]

...He hugs her.

[roc_on]

Hugs!

[thinklikethis]

Hugs.

[roc_on]

Eventually Hayaka's earthbender friend shows up. Beila explains the problem to him, and together they carefully remove all the wooden boards, and the earthbender sinks the entire lot to provide a good, thick covering for the sinkhole that should stand up to casual weight.

"I'll have to tell the guy not to build on this lot, at least not anything heavy," says Beila. "Or it'll just re-open."

"You could sit a house on this," says the earthbender. "Not an office building, I'd have to sink it deeper to give it that."

"Thank you very much for your help," Beila tells him.

"No thanks necessary, that earthquake was the spookiest thing I ever felt," says the earthbender, shaking his head. "If you say this'll stop it, I'm satisfied."

"It should," says Beila. She wafts up to a standing position. "Dao, d'you want to come along to talk to the owner?"

[thinklikethis]

"Sure," shrugs Dao.

[roc_on]

Thataway they go.

"You are very supportive," says Beila. "It's nice."

[thinklikethis]

"Aww," he says, smiling.

[roc_on]

"Have you ever - interacted at all with spirits in any way, shape, or form? I'm trying to come up with a hypothesis about why you could've been dragged along with me," Beila wonders aloud as they walk.

[thinklikethis]

"Um... not that I recall? Maybe something knew you'd need me to carry you," Dao suggests.

[roc_on]

"Maybe," muses Beila. "I don't think Avatar transitions into the spirit world are mediated by anything that knows stuff, though."