Woodbending
The forest seemed to go on for miles. The thickly-foliaged branches blocked most of the light of the sun, making the forest floor a dark and gloomy place, barely fit for experienced woodsmen, let alone two girls.
But it was two girls exploring this forest. The taller of the pair had brown hair that nearly touched her shoulders, remnants of red and white paint on her face, and a dark green outfit that blended in surprisingly well with the forest. Leather guarded her hands and feet. Ragged strips at her waist suggested that she had once worn a full green skirt, but now her legs were sheathed in dark green breeches. On her belt, she sported a pair of golden fans and a katana in a scabbard. Her eyes were hard, darting around constantly, prepared for anything. Her strides were determined and steady.
The shorter of the two contrasted from her partner in every way. Her pink outfit was tight-fitting in the bodice, but the further the cloth extended from her torso, the more it billowed. Her long brown hair was mostly confined to a braid, one that showed signs of wear and tear. Her round face was framed by long bangs, which matched her large eyes. Despite her frilly outfit, she walked with grace and poise, never losing her footing and dodging roots and stones in the ground without even looking.
"So, where are we going?" the pink girl asked, jumping and twisting in the air without any apparent effort and continuing to walk on her hands.
"We're getting out of this forest. Don't think I trust you, acrobat. You'll have your chance to prove yourself when we reach Kyoshi Island," the green-clad warrior woman snapped.
"Well, Suki, I think that attitude is entirely too harsh," the acrobatic girl replied, her tone light and unfazed. She easily flipped back to her feet.
Suki snorted, but said nothing.
"As long as we're stuck in these forests together, we might as well make conversation," the acrobat continued. "I'm not going to leave you for dead either, you know. I'm a city girl, I don't know anything about the woods."
Suki kept her silence, but her companion didn't seem to need a second side to the "conversation".
"Your aura is very pretty, you know. Lots of red, so you must be very passionate. But you've got green and brown, too. Most people don't have more than one color in their aura, unless they're Benders. I guess you're an Earthbender?"
"I'm no Bender," Suki snapped. "If you had any talent yourself you'd know that, Ty Lee."
Ty Lee laughed. "I've got plenty of talent. Can you do this?" And again, without even a pause for breath, she leaped in the air, grabbed a branch and swung herself through the air to land ten feet in front of Suki – on one hand.
"I meant Bending talent and you know it," Suki muttered.
"Do your people have many Benders? If you don't, maybe no one saw it, and you never got to find out!"
Suki's hand drifted to her fans, but with an all-too-visible effort, she kept herself from attacking the annoying gymnast.
"We have few Benders, and they are always Earthbenders. We all are tested for the talent, though, and I did not have it." She passed Ty Lee, still waiting on one hand. "I don't need Bending to be a powerful warrior, anyway."
"That's true. That cute Water Tribe boy you're with never Bends either. Is that why you like him?" Ty Lee asked, flipping to her feet and nimbly catching up to Suki.
"That's none of your business," Suki responded.
"When I started learning acrobatics, my teachers always told me to pretend I was a cherry blossom petal on the wind," Ty Lee said, lacing her fingers behind her head as she walked next to Suki. "Sometimes, when I was concentrating very hard, I felt like I could just float away on the air."
"Did you," Suki said, her inflection making her disinterest clear.
"Nope. Never tried. It's dangerous enough on a tight-wire without trying to fly off it." Ty Lee abruptly leapt into a cartwheel that lead to a forward handspring, then backflipped to stay near Suki. "And I obviously have no Firebending skills, so no one ever thought to ask me if I had anything else."
"Do you think you do?" The question seemed to surprise Suki as she spoke it.
"I've got something. I can see auras and the paths of people's chi. I can't move it though, which rules out Waterbending. And I hate dust and rocks." Ty Lee shot a disgusted look at her shoes, which bore a great deal of both. "But I love flowers."
Before Suki could say anything else, the pair walked into a deceptively thick tangle of branches. Suki reached for her fans, but Ty Lee moved her hands into and around the foliage in patterns too fast to see, and the branches parted, revealing a clearing where the sun shone down unobstructed.
Ty Lee let out a girlish giggle, and darted into the clearing, beginning an elaborate dance routine.
Suki put her hands on her hips, and stopped herself from harrumphing like her mother. But before she could say anything, something caught her eye.
Where Ty Lee's nimble feet touched the grass, flowers were blooming. The swath of red and yellow blossoms followed the path of her dance.
"You're Bending those flowers!" Suki gasped.
Ty Lee stopped her dance, ending on one foot with the other directly above it, a stance that made Suki wince. After a moment, the blossoms faded and withered, crumbling to dust in seconds.
"They aren't in season," Ty Lee said softly. "And I've never had a teacher, so I don't know how to make them stay alive without my Bending."
Suki was impressed despite herself. "Flowerbending? I've never heard of it. Wait – what you did with the branches. You didn't push them away, you Bent them." She opened her mouth, then paused as another thought occurred to her. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because I think you've got this gift too. I call it Woodbending, actually, since it works best on trees and bushes. I know that we were enemies, but Ozai and Azula are finished." Ty Lee looked down, tears visibly welling up. "She was crazy, but she was my friend…until she tried to kill Mai." She swallowed, and got control of herself, grinning, though it didn't touch her eyes. "Now that I'm not afraid of her Firebending anymore, I want to learn my own craft. And you must be jealous of the Avatar and his friends."
Suki took a deep breath. "I don't know why you're telling me all this, or why I feel like you're telling the truth, but it doesn't matter. I'm no Bender, and we're not friends."
Ty Lee's forced grin dropped off of her face. "Fine. I gave you a ch – aaaah!"
Before Ty Lee could finish her sentence, a bola flew from the trees and wrapped her up, pinning her arms. She bounded into the air, tumbling gracefully and landing on the other side of the clearing.
Suki dropped into a fighting stance, drawing both fans from her belt. With a flick of her wrists, they expanded fully, glittering in the sun.
From the trees came three men in ragged brown clothing. They had leathery skin and huge, muscular builds. One of them moved in obvious Earthbending, calling blocks of stone from the ground and hurling them at Suki.
Suki leapt forward, twisting as gracefully as Ty Lee and whirling her fans. The blocks of stone shattered into dust as Suki landed.
Two men focused on Suki, both calling upon Earthbending, while the third went for Tylee. She shrieked, and leapt again, but lost her balance without her arms and landed on her side. The bandit reached her, and got a cord around her ankles.
Suki waited for her two assailants. While the Kyoshi Warriors were rarely Benders, they were still founded upon the principles of Earthbending: waiting for the precise right moment to strike. Suki's moment arrived when one of the men called gloves of earth to his hands. While he finished his enhancement, she rushed forward, closing her fans and striking him at the chest, elbow, and finally the temple, knocking him unconscious.
She sensed the second man coming up behind her. She whirled around, bringing both fans together and opening them wide, bracing them against each other. A spike of earth struck them solidly, driving her back. She kicked out, then followed with a slash of one razor-sharp fan. The bandit dodged her attack, and stomped his feet solidly. A wave of earth ran under her, knocking her balance away.
Ty Lee, now being held up by her own bandit, took this moment to whip her body, driving her head down and feet up. The crown of her head dug into the ground, but her feet connected solidly with the bandit's face.
Suki saw this, and jumped into the air. In one smooth motion, she closed her fans and rehung them on her belt, did a back handspring, and drew a small knife from a fold of her gi. She landed a few feet from Ty Lee, and rushed forward to free the girl.
A block of stone flew through the air. Suki twisted, barely dodging, before kneeling to cut through Ty Lee's bonds.
When the girls arms came free, another earthen projectile came rushing toward them. Suki, on one knee, didn't have enough freedom to dodge this attack, and braced herself for the impact.
But Ty Lee's arms whipped through the air, and the grass around them rippled to life. Blades of grass grew thousands of times their length in less than a second and struck the stone, shattering it, before reducing to their normal size.
Sweat broke out over all Ty Lee's body. "Wow, that was really hard," she gasped. "Get my legs, hurry, they're getting up!"
Indeed, all three bandits were gathering together, and preparing a joint strike that neither Ty Lee's weak Woodbending or Suki's fan could block. Suki slashed through the cord on Ty Lee's ankles, and sheathed the knife, getting to her feet to prepare herself for the attack.
But Ty Lee had other ideas. Getting to her feet far more quickly than Suki would have thought possible, she grabbed the Kyoshi Warrior's wrists, and set her arms in a position alien to Suki's combat training.
"Quick, mirror me! Follow through, like…this!"
Ty Lee set herself in the same stance she had put Suki, and planted her right foot forward, thrusting her left hand out and her right up, just as the triple-Earthbending flew toward them. Suki mimicked the gymnast's action, having no better plan in mind.
From nowhere, a flood of energy rushed through her. Her eyes widened as something a hundred times more potent than any adrenaline rush flowed through her left arm. She felt the same energy in Ty Lee, and realized her mirror of the acrobat had strengthened…whatever was happening.
In the air, pink energy swirled and suddenly exploded, revealing a large sunflower blossom, hovering before them. The huge stone missile struck it, and both were pulverized into dust.
"And resolve!" Ty Lee snapped, bringing her left foot forward and snapping her right hand down, left into the air. Suki followed suit, and felt the rush of power inside her flow into the ground.
Flowers burst into bloom all across the field.
"Aaaaand….strike!"
Ty Lee crossed her wrists at her chest, then thrust both hands forward, palm out, with one final step. Something inside Suki knew exactly what to do, and this time, they made the motion exactly together. The energy within her leapt toward the acrobat, then back, magnifying itself before exploding through the ground and around the bandits.
The flowers shuddered, then released a cloud of pollen so thick it was visible. The three bandits waved their arms for a brief moment, then fell over, unconscious.
Ty Lee lowered her arms, and took a more normal stance. Suki did the same, then staggered as a wave of exhaustion replaced that sparkling energy.
"Careful, Bending is hard work when you aren't used to it," Ty Lee said, grabbing Suki's arm before the taller girl could fall over.
"How…how did you know what to do?" Suki asked. "You said you had no training!"
"I don't have any Bending training. But you might have noticed I'm pretty good at fighting…and Bending is linked with motion. I figured out the pollen bomb a long time ago, and it's about the only move I can really rely on. You can get flowers to sprout anywhere, as long as there's soil." Ty Lee glanced around the clearing. "These seem to have taken hold; maybe it just needed more power to make them real plants."
Suki shook her head. "I…I can Bend. I don't believe it…"
"Don't think too hard about it," Ty Lee said. "You're not the next Avatar, although it looks like your gift is pretty strong. Maybe we can ask the Avatar about it, see if he knows anyone with similar talents."
Suki shook her head again, this time smiling. "I can't believe we're acting like we're friends now."
"That's what happens when you fight together. It makes a bond." Ty Lee smiled, the first genuine smile Suki had seen on her since their arrival in the forest. "Don't worry, we're not going to start having tea parties together. But I think we can trust each other a little, don't you?'
Suki sighed, then nodded. "It looks like we're going to have to."
Ty Lee pulled Suki to her feet, and the two girls started into and through the forest again.