Chapter 1

"Where should I begin my story?" I asked. "From birth? No, that's too far back. If we go that far, we should start from my past life... but no, the past life is just that – the past. And my birth was quite a long time ago. In that case, I should start from the moment everything changed. When everything went sideways. But first, let me briefly tell you who I am. You probably don't know about the little village on the bank of a small river, not far from Ba Sing Se, near the deserts. It's a very small village; there were about twenty... no, twenty-three people, including me. That's how I count them: women, children, old folks, and men. Twenty-three people... and we lived peacefully there, except for my brother and me. You see, we were born as benders, hehe."

"You have a brother?" someone from above asked.

"Yes, an older twin brother. But unlike me, he wasn't as lucky..."

"I can tell you're the lucky one!" came a voice from above, another person.

"Oh, don't doubt that. If I'm not lucky, then you all have bad luck," I muttered quietly, too low for the others to hear.

"So, what happened next?" the first voice asked.

"Well, what happened next... we were born in that village. I remember our father. I had a good memory from childhood, but I can't recall my brother's face. He went off to war. He was a war fanatic, always seeing injustice everywhere and so on. Our mother raised us. When I first, feeling thirsty, drew a few drops of water towards me..."

I was sick at the time and could barely walk. She had just come in with a cup of water.

"That's when she told us about our family's past. Our grandmother, my great-grandmother, was from the southern Water Tribe, but she left. She didn't have any bending abilities, and by then, her daughter, my grandmother, who was born and raised there, didn't possess bending either. She had some issues with the local chief or something. But then I demonstrated waterbending for the first time in several generations. A recessive gene, I suppose, made itself known."

"What?" the second voice asked from above.

"Oh, nothing much. Our mother told us about our ancestral history, but she doesn't know how to develop or train this bending. But I was curious. Besides, my brother soon demonstrated the same ability. Curiosity and the desire to accomplish something on our own drove us. So, we began learning bending independently."

"Independently? Completely on your own? Without a teacher or at least written records?" the second voice asked incredulously, presumably a younger and more curious individual.

"And how did people first learn about bending?" the voice asked. "Did the Lion Turtles teach them? Even if they did, they must have learned it from somewhere. Everything, be it blacksmithing, construction, painting, combat, or bending, at some point, was learned through trial and error, by finding one's own path. The right path. That's how it worked for everything: blacksmithing, construction, painting, combat, and bending. So my brother and I, with no other options, followed this path, independently learning new things and making mistakes. Oh, I remember all those hours and days we spent meditating in the knee-deep water of a small pond, trying to feel the water and learn to control it."

"And why did you think that was the right way?" Second Voice asked. Did First Voice leave or something?"

"Well, why not?" I asked in response to the voice. "In my past life, I remember everyone talking about how to grasp the ungraspable, or something like that. You had to meditate, renounce all irritants, and focus on your goal. So I decided to give it a try. And my brother, despite being older, decided to try the same thing, even though he didn't have any ideas of his own."

"You said that the past is now in the past," the First Voice scoffed, still not believing my words about my past life. He hadn't left after all.

"But that doesn't mean I should forget it and not use what I can extract from it. And what I have are just my memories. After many hours spent in the water, relying purely on determination, I managed to lift a couple of water droplets into the air for the first time. You can't imagine how my brother and I shouted with joy at that moment. It was incredible! Soon, under the influence of my success, my little brother managed to do the same."

"And how much time did it take you to achieve that success?" Second Voice asked.

"One year, two months, one week, three days," I promptly replied, "The first step is always the hardest in anything. It's the one that's most difficult to take, no matter what it applies to. Even toddlers need a lot of time and effort to take their first step, along with numerous attempts. But after the first step, everything becomes much easier. Controlling water was difficult; it was fluid, and the only way to hold it still in one place was either as ice or a puddle. So my brother and I concluded that constant motion was crucial in water manipulation. It didn't matter if the movements were small or large, as long as there was some form of motion. We understood that rule and the subsequent one. Smooth movements were more suitable for waterbending. Subconsciously, we humans associate water and its movements with smoothness, which is why it's psychologically easier to control water with smooth movements."

"What happened next?" Second Voice asked again.

"Training, bragging to our mom, and things like that," I replied. "There was a boy in the village who was an earthbender, and he was also striving to develop his skills in that direction. However, he had written records to make his development easier. But my brother and I had a bit more success, indeed. According to my mom, I had a talent for this."

"Yes, indeed, many people know that now. You showcased your talent quite well, especially last time," First Voice chimed in.

"What can I say? A cornered rat, as they say," I left the sentence unfinished, knowing they would understand as they had heard me say it before. "In short, that's it. Now, back to the point... When my older brother and I were fourteen, some kid caught us practicing. He was quite young, only about ten or eleven. It's funny that everything that happened next started with him. He was the son of a trader who had stopped in our village for some rest. My brother and mom didn't pay much attention to it, and neither did I, but I have a good memory, as I've mentioned before. The trader left the village the next day, and three days later, soldiers from the Fire Nation arrived in the village. They were looking for water and earthbenders. Our parents and all the villagers refused to cooperate, but the soldiers didn't wait. Moreover, they had a firebender with them..."

"They burned down the village. Killed the inhabitants. My brother and I fled. I knew trouble was coming when I saw soldiers in the distance, and when my mother heard me, she told us to run. So, we ran. We ran for a long time. Out of twenty-three people, only two fourteen-year-old children survived. Twins. Waterbenders. It's a sad story. But that's only the beginning. Hehe...

"You don't have to tell more," First Voice said. "Your early achievements are known to us. That's when you first made a name for yourself. Well, they didn't even know about you back then, but you showed your skills for the first time."

"But I'm curious," Second Voice said. "Go on. Standing here and dying in this unbearable heat isn't much better, so let's hear the story."

"Trust me," First Voice paused and addressed Second Voice, "you won't want to know this."

"We'll see about that. Hey, continue."

"They sent some kind of creature after us. A lizard or something like that. Some people ride them, but this one was small. Probably young. It caught up to us in half an hour. My brother and I, with our limited abilities back then, fought it off. And we won. Not right away, of course... and not without cost. It attacked us so unexpectedly..."

"Then I lost my brother. That creature knocked him down and severed an artery. He bled out, barely uttering his last words. You know what those words were? It was 'Avenge our mother!' For the first time in this life, I cried so long and so hard. It wasn't just crying; it was a real fit of hysteria. In one day, I lost everything I had. My home, my mother, my twin brother, uncles and aunts, friends... and then I realized that the only thing they couldn't take away from me, something that would always be with me, was myself and my bending. I headed back. When I returned, it was evening. The soldiers of the Fire Nation had set up camp not far away, and the light from their campfires was easily visible to me. I arrived at night, when only the night watch was awake. There weren't many of them, but they had enough for a night watch. That was when I killed for the first time in both my lives. It was quick, easy. I felt no inhibitions, no guilt, and so on. A tiny stream of water flowed very slowly right along the ground, hiding in the grass and its shadows. That's how it gathered under each of the six guards.And then... the sharp ice stakes easily pierced through the soldiers' bodies, coming out and turning red with blood. Slowly the bodies descended on the stakes, which turned back into water below. I didn't want to make too much noise. When the bodies came down, I remember it as if it was only yesterday, a smile colored my face and... a thin trickle of water cuts no worse, or even better than any blade.I dismembered these soldiers with such pleasure that I never dreamed of. First the legs, arms, then the head, then the bodies and limbs were cut into centimeter discs of bones and flesh, which I carefully placed in piles with water and put the severed heads on top. When I finished with the guards, I went into the tent where the others were sleeping.I brought water under each of the seven people, and then I killed four with stakes, punching three more hands and feet, including the bender.Their screams were probably heard for hundreds of meters, but soon they fell silent, despite the pain. They watched as I did to their dead comrades the same thing I had already done to the sentinels. And all this time, I was smiling. Perhaps that scared them even more. Perhaps. I encased the bender almost entirely in ice, keeping the ability to breathe. When I finished with the dead, forming piles with their heads right there in the main tent, staring at the living with a dead look, forcing them to watch their still-living comrades. And then I asked only one question to the living."

*****

"Where did you learn that there are waterbenders here?" I asked my captives. "Did the merchant tell you?"

"Uh... no. Please, let us go..." said one of the soldiers. "We overheard a conversation between the merchant and his kid by chance. That's why we came here."

"Is that so? Thank you. I'll kill you quickly!" I said, and before the soldier could say anything, the ice point pierced through his skull."

Now I turned to the rest.

"I've already sliced up your comrades, but they were all dead by that time. It would be interesting to try the same with the living, wouldn't it?" I asked the firebender, who was looking at me in horror.I'll leave him for last, as the murderer of my mother. I saw her corpse. She was burned alive in the middle of the street. Only a fire bender could do that.