trans_9 | Back to basics

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Back to basics

Katara normally was a bundle of energy, or at least willing to try to look on the bright side of things, and greeted the day with a burst of energy. But when she woke up, there was no relief there, no calm demeanor. Right now Katara felt restless, and not being able to help Roxie like Katara had hoped made her unable to go back to sleep. Even if the Nightmare King wouldn't be meddling this time, she would never be able to get certain images out of his head. Hama crawling after them, Aang and the Seer stopping her, Hama losing her head, learning that it was just a part of the Nightmare King. She'd knew now that the danger she'd faced was only slight compared to what was in store, and that despite all of her training and preparation, she'd failed. If the Nightmare King could do this, he could do worse.

So she found herself in the Sensorium, and now she was met with the Northern water Tribe, where she had faced Master Pakku when he refused to teach her waterbending because he was a girl. There was no Master Pakku to face this time: instead, she had recreated the pirates from when they were trying to take the ship. She faced them down, but she didn't have her normal clothing on: she had decided to emulate some of the modern wear she'd seen some of the other girls on the ship wear. She had on a loose cotton blue shirt, her hair tied back, with long flowing slacks. She breathed in, and brought her hands up. She closed her eyes, hearing the scoffing of the pirates. They didn't take her seriously: why should they? She was just a little girl, and there were several of them, with long, powerful weapons and tentacles and sharp teeth.

She closed her eyes, and felt the wind change: first attack. Her hands moved of their own accord and pushed against the pirate. The shift in balance made him fall to the floor and Katara used him as leverage to give a flying leap in the air, and hammer down on the other pirates. Before her training with Sheeana, she wouldn't have attacked without waterbending, but now she was moving with fury, taking the pirates confusion as an advantage to shift their weight and incapacitate them. She moved with purpose, and hardly used offense: instead, she moved in her dance, but quicker, smoother, balancing herself and making her enemies fall. She knew that Toph was much better at this, but it didn't hurt to use her speed and defense against them.

When she had gotten to the last few pirates she froze them all together, then sat down in cross legged position. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and closed her eyes again. One, two. One two. One two- one-two.

She remembered Aang's instructions, and knew that this would be another test. The last time she'd gotten limited sleep she got pretty cranky and started to lash out. Now though, she would know better. She wouldn't be screaming at anyone, she would stay calm, she would stay centered, and then, when she felt relaxed, she would continue her training.

Tess had to train without her suit, so Katara would hold off on her waterbending.

She WOULD strengthen her will. She would not bend to the Nightmare King again.

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On today's sensorium round, Sheeana opened the door to feel a blast of cold wind sting her face at the edges. She hurriedly pulled the hood of her black robe over her head. She vibrated the air in her chest, warming herself and bravely forged ahead.

There was Katara in the middle of a simulated melee, swarthy cuthroats confused by her juking, bumping into each other. There were enraged cries in salty accents.

When she was done, Sheeana felt a brief moment of pride. This was what Darwi must have felt, this sweet and ancient process of watching someone develop because of your help.

Katara's ears perked at the opening door, and she smiled, because she knew the step by now of her fellow Sister and teacher. The shirt flapped on,and though Katara was certainly used to wearing more clothes than what she had on in that weather, she was not cold. The pirates faded away a moment and the two of them were in a colony in the Earth nation: Jet's gang's treehouse. It was rather quiet, what with the lack of Jet's gang, the cluster of trees and only the chitter of a nearby cricket.

Katara opened her eyes slowly. She was more than happy Sheeana was here: she needed to talk about this feeling creeping in her chest, this dread that had come in the guise of a headless but vicious woman, and what happened from there.

"Sheeana," Katara said softly. "Have you had any nightmares lately?"

Sheeana inhaled the leafy scents of the forest: loam, wood, sap, plants. She perched on a wooden ledge built around an old trunks.

"I was going to ask you that. Something did try to effect my dreaming last night, but my mothers-within warned me." Ah, the Nightmare King and his plans. He couldn't touch a fully trained Reverend Mother, but others...

Katara nodded gently. Well, that made sense. It was Sheeana after all, and she, like Aang, still had the wisdom of others to aid her. It wasn't jealousy but silent acknowledgment that her teacher was quite powerful.

"Yes," Katara said. "I thought I was prepared, I thought I would know when the Nightmare King was coming. But my nightmare was aimed at exposing a part of myself I wasn't proud of, and in that moment I faltered, and I was fooled. I would have been fooled had not two people intercepted the dream: the Seer, and Aang, the Avatar. They both were there, so I'm pretty sure now that the god is starting to feel us out, try to see what we can do. I just..."

She put her head down. "I'm disappointed in myself. I was fooled, and had Aang and the Seer not stepped in, the thing in that dream, would have hurt me. This is not even the full extent of his power. I can't be fooled again, Sheeana. He's counting on me."

She took a breath. "If you know of a way to quiet the mind, to silence the creeping insecurities of the mind, would you be able to help me?"

Sheeana crossed over to her pupil and sat across from her, imitating her lotus. "These things take time." She said as she laid a gentle hand on Katara's shoulder. "Our fastest pupil in ten thousand years of history was an acolyte for a year. Now I think I do have a solution that can help you in a very practical manner." She typed a message to Khel on her omnicomm. Perhaps he would feel sweet enough towards her after their almost-kindof-sortof lovemaking last night to do her this favor. "Our friend Khel can induce terrible fear. I would immunize you and Tess at his earliest possible convienence. Now tell me about what this nightmare dredged up."

Katara nodded. Sheeana was right, and she really should not have been trying to force herself to be prepared. Besides,it wasn't as if she knew exactly how The Nightmare King would have attacked anyway. Now, at least, she had a little advantage.

"Khel can do that?" Katara said, surprised. "Oh, that would be great! At least now I might have a better chance at resisting what he'll attempt next. Aang needed the Seer's help to defeat him, so this won't be an easy foe, I know that for certain."

But at the last question, Katara flinched. Even now, even with training, she could not look back on the day she learned a waterbending ability she could never unlearn.

"I have told you about my master, Pakku. But I had, in our travels, one other teacher. In our hiding out in the Fire Nation we came across an old woman we discovered was from out tribe many years ago, when the Firenation captured all of the Southern Waterbenders. She was the only one to escape, and eventually, through trickery, she told me how: on the full moon, when our bending is at its most potent, we had the ability to bend the water in the human body to our will: bloodbending. She did it to me, but I broke free, and then she had my friend start attacking me. I had to stop her by bloodbending, and even though she was imprisoned, the damage was done. I learned bloodbending that night."

She closed her eyes. "When I sought revenge against the fire soldier that killed my mother, I bloodbended one more time, and it was the wrong man. IO don't like to think how close I came to murder at that time, but it wa pretty bad."

She swallowed. "In the Nightmare Hama came back, and seemed to know about things in my life. She urged me to bloodbend again, to get revenge on the people who hurt Aang."

Bloodbending... Sheeana had assumed this impossible since Katara hadn't mentioned it. Yet there was apparently more to the idea. She had assumed wrong. Which will teach me to make assumptions.

"Revenge is a road that leads only to itself. Yet there is nothing evil about this ability, any more than we can assign malevolance to a sword or lasgun. If you recall the lesson on archetypes we went over last week...you've just met your Shadow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)). It represents the parts of yourself you don't want to acknowledge. This is a powerful archetypal figure that the Nightmare King must have made even more terrifying." She pitched her voice to be as reassuring as she could make it.

Katara nodded. She should have thought that,s he knew she should have. But there were certain humps Katara had never quite gotten over, and Hama just happened to be one of them. "It was a shock to see her again, and to hear her telling me that I needed to sue my bloodbending, and then before I knew it some kind of dark feeling was let in. I could hardly move, and though I was conscious of that, I felt myself starting to surrender my body into the room. That was when Aang came and broke that trance. The Seer beheaded Hama's head, and she writhed and moved on her own. Aang then told me I would have to be careful: that I needed to aid Roxie, and try to get the crew to band together. He said...the Nightmares were going to get worse."

She lowered her head. "I never wanted to learn that power teacher: there are some thing that tempt even the good hearted because they make things easier. And she forced me to learn it. Something that's a gift should not be given as if its a curse."

Sheeana inhaled deeply and chewed nervously on her lower lip. Time for another revelation. "Sister...I have told almost noone this...but when I was eight, I watched my village get destroyed by a worm. Everyone I knew up to that point disappeared into its jaws. When I was an acolyte, I would often have nightmares of that event. Darwi was wise though, and she gave me a canvas and brush. In that process, I put my fear down where I could see it, and I accepted that part of myself: the enraged child who desperately wanted her family back. You cannot change what she did to you but you need to accept this part of yourself too, or it will become leverage to use against you. If you do not incorporate your Shadow into yourself, it will devour you."

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