Chapter 5 - Meditation and Discovery

The days bled together, being out on the ocean is something I'm used to, but the sheer vastness still gets to me. It's only on rare occasion that I get this much time just for myself. Over the past week, I've spent my time in meditation, trying to figure out why my bending is missing. I'm hard-pressed to understand this spirituality that I'm supposed to have. I'm beginning to get short tempered.

As fate would have it, Nami walks in at the start of my tantrum.

"Woah Korra, what's up? Still having trouble with your powers?"

"I don't feel a single thing, it's like they never existed! I can't tell if this is something because of me being here or if I'm injured from to my last fight."

"Just keep at it, a lot of times trying too hard at something makes it even harder to do. Sometimes taking a step back and looking at things from a different view might help as well. You're so familiar with your powers, what if that's limiting your perception of them?"

It was like I was smacked in the face by Bolin's pet ferret, Pabu.

"Nami you're a genius! I've been feeling sea sick this entire time!!! But I was born in the water tribe! My entire life has been on the water! How could I ever get seasick!?"

She gives me this knowing smile and then leaves me to my own devices.

As I settled back into my chosen corner of the deck, I cross my legs and place my hands on my knees. I begin to look inside myself, I begin to search for the source of this sickness. It's not hard to find at all, in fact, it's absolutely glaring, how could I have not noticed this before? Flowing through my body is this strange energy, it doesn't feel...normal...

It's almost as if this energy belongs to a separate entity, it has this deep sense of wrongness to me. I can't move it, I can't push it out, it just exists. Beyond exists, it's growing. Where is it coming from? As I search my body, I notice that it's seeping through my skin, it's entering my lungs, my hair, it's coming in from my entire body! How is this possible!? Is it the air? I refocus my meditation outwards, to my surroundings.

The energy is absolutely EVERYWHERE! It's like the entire world is full of this stuff, it's even inside the grains of the wood the boat is made from, how is that possible!? I extend my perception as far as I can, I engulf the boat and everyone in it, everyone is being surrounded by this energy, it's through their entire body just like mine. Nami, Robin, and Chopper seem to have a small amount of it, but Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji seem to have a quite a bit more, but all of them combined didn't explain why I have so much of this stuff in me, it's like I've been absorbing this stuff ever since I woke up. What is it!? I refocus myself and try to make sense of what I'm feeling. I notice that the energy seems to be quite a bit thicker on the right side of the boat, on the right side of the sea. After spending half a day, what I understand is far too little and only brings more questions. I need to talk to Nami.

I walk my way to Nami's room and knock, "Nami, it's me, I need your help with something."

I tell her everything that I sensed during my meditation, "Do you know of anything in that general direction?" I ask while gesturing to the side of the boat the energy is the thickest on.

"We don't really have maps for places we haven't been to, the best we could do is sail in that direction and see what happens, I'll go talk to the others and see what they think, you should try to meditate and find us a heading."

"Alright."

I found that the energy is thicker than anywhere else directly between three and four o'clock and I could glean little much else.

I come out of meditation to see that Franky is in front of me, watching me closely.

"You say that there is an energy inside the grains of wood of this boat?"

"Yeah, it's everywhere."

"What about this wood here?" He hands me a piece of wood, it looks really beaten up, like it's driftwood.

"It feels like there is some in it, but not nearly as much as the wood of this boat."

"How about this one then?" He hands me another.

"A little more, but still not anywhere near as much as the wood this boat is made from, it's maybe 10% tops."

His eyes are gleaming brightly, I must have missed something.