Training for Acolyte

Umi went into the flying island on which sat the air city. She was not longer in the city, but rather exploring the other parts of the island. She was riding on Amor, admiring the beauty, but suddenly she spotted something amazing. A nice lake, broad and clear, sat among the forrest she and Amor were in. Without waiting for Amor to lie down, she slid off the saddle. ”I am going to do my training here Amor, thank you greatly for helping me find a good spot. I knew your nose would really help find a big sourse of water outside the city. Thank you! If you don’t mind, stay near the lake, maybe go to sleep, it will be night very soon, or catch some dinner. When I am done I will try to catch some fish and share some with you. Thanks for all the help.” Umi stroked her shirt’s muzzle, admiring the fur, not at all daunted by the strange nose or lack of eyes, he was beautiful to her. Without further ado, Umi ran out to the edge of the lake. Umi froze some of it, creating a nice surf board for herself out of ice. Then she jumped on, and began her bending practice. Umi whipped up a large wave, and froze her feet onto her surfboard. From there, she began her bending, curving the wave pushing her, going faster and faster, riding the wave. She used her bending to turn the wave before she crashed into the opposite shore of her starting position. She turned, and rode next to the beach, still riding her wave, her arms moving gracefully in fluid sweeping motions.

Umi laughed in delight, riding the wave around the lake, performing laps around the lake. Then, on a spur of the moment decision, she made a rapid curve, and kept curving, trying to force the wave into turning in an ever smaller circle. But then the wave crashed in on itself, and she went sprawling into the water, her feet still frozen to the board, the board floating and her underwater. She flailed her arms, making a current, a strong one, to push her back above water. With a sigh, she un froze her feet and began a different form of training. Umi sat down on her surf board, and began to raise small blobs of water from the surface of the lake. Many small marbles, which she send flying in circles about a foot over the water. Began moving them faster. The idea of this form of training? She wanted to increase her control. This was an exercise of her own devising, that would force her to try and bend a dozen marble sized balls of water, all separate, and bend them all going different directions.

Umi concentrated, sinking her mind into an emotionless state, trying to gain control over every single marble. They all kept going in the same direction, like a school of fish, all swimming in the same direction. It was annoying. Umi took deep breaths, then stood, gaining a better view of the marbles of water flying just a foot over the lake surface. She moved her arms in a different way, one arm moving in one way, another in the opposite way. It was frustrating. Every try to put your hands into fists, with the knuckles pointing towards one another, then make each fist go in circles, one clockwise the other counterclockwise? It’s intensely frustrating to do, requiring great concentration. Umi moved with slow ness, slowing down the speed, so each marble was discernable and easy to track,. She let the marbles disperse and fall into the water, keeping track of only 3 of them at the same time, moving them close, then making them all move in tight circles each in different directions. It was hard.

After a numbing 20 minutes, however, she managed to get it. She made another marble, and joined it into the fray, moving one marble in horizontal circles, clockwise, another counterclockwise, while at the same time moving two other marbles of water , moving in verticle circles, one clockwise, the other counterclockwise. The movements were annoyingly compex, trying to keep each marble in a section of her mind. It was like trying to divide the human consciousness into 4 section, giving easch section an entirely different job and though process. It was crazy. The confusing conundrum was giving her a headache. But if she was ever going to be a master, she needed extreme control over her element and that could not be done without extreme training.

But then Umi had a problem. The sun had set, the moon was rising. Her bending was becoming stronger and more powerfull as the moon was visible in the sky. This was getting too easy. Her control when the moon was there was better than during the day. So she stopped the simple circles, and had each marble zigzag in a circle, still in different directions, 2 horizontals, 2 vertical circles. This was worse than before the moon rose. 4 marbles moving in different directions each with a different pattern she had to maintain. The marbles kept going off path. She sank as far into meditation as she had yet gone while bending, trying not to think any thoughts other than the odd discord going on as her mind tried to fracture itself into 4 functioning pieces at the same time. She stopped, letting all the water rejoin the lake. Umi saw where this was going. If she kept this up she would literally drive herself crazy and possibly actually fracture her consciousness permanently, at least while she was only as weak a bender as she was now.

In light of that realization, she was glad she had never managed it, all her marbles had kept going off course and by the time she got one back, another was flying off at random. Umi had a new idea. “Water Marble Jousting!” She created two more marbles, larger this time. She kept them several yards apart, then, moving her arms in a quick fashion had them race towards one another. The idea was to, at the last second, instead of them colliding, forcing them to swerve just enough to miss one another. It was frustrating. She kept trying to make them miss, and every time one of two things would happen. Either they would swerve way too far away from one another and she would loose control, or they would crash into one another, merging. Umi struggled on, trying, without anyone to show her a better way, to figure it out herself. She would not tolerate failure though. Finally, after 20 rounds of “marble jousting” she did it. She jumped for joy as those marbles swerved just barely enough to miss entirely. As a victory dance, she did 5 more laps of the lake, driving her wave to the greatest speed possible..

After her victory lap, she began a new type of training, trying to lift the greatest mass of water into the as she could. It was frustrating trying to lift more water than she usually was able to life at once. But she knew that to be a good water bender she need to be able to utilize a lot of water to pull it off. Slowly she began to ge able to lift more than her usual amount, and for sure the moon greatly helped her ability. It was frustrating, but after 30 minutes, she was managing a much bigger sized ball than possible. With a smile, she went back to marble jousting, this time using one ice marble and one water marble. Her new idea was to be able to knock just one drop of water from the water marble with the ice one. However, this resulting in annoying failures as they either collided, or swerved around to miss. But she was happy to see that when they missed one another, they were getting closer and closer to one another. The idea wasn’t to hit strait on, that would destroy the water marble, but rather to clip the water marble just barely with the ice one, shaving off only a couple drops. Umi gave up after about an hour, but there were promising signs that if she kept practicing for a long time she might. But still, that was way beyond her to pull off, the best she had managed was a luck shot that resulted in only destroying half the water marble, halving it’s size. But, that seemed huge to her, so even though she didn’t manage to pull it off any more after 30 minutes of trying to replicate it, she took another 10 laps of the lake surfing water bender style. That at least was very fun, and she was getting to be able to go at faster and faster speeds, which pleased her very much. After her last lap, she headed to shore, where a large mound in light brown and black told her Amor was resting. After her long hours of training, she ached to join him, but first, she used bending to try and fail to catch a fish. She was too tired to pull it off, so she settled for nestling against Amor and going to sleep for the night.