The first time he heals something, really heals something, not just studying theory or practicing on a dead fish, Tarrlok throws up. This goes by relatively unnoticed by his teachers because at least half of his classmates are also vomiting. "It's alright," mutters Yutu, leaning down to rub Tarrlok's back and clean up the mess. "Lots of people get sick their first time."
Tarrlok wipes his mouth and tries to help his teacher. "This never happened to me before."
Yutu smiles as he waterbends to clean up the last of it. He goes over to Ahnah, who managed to valiantly avoid having the same problem at first, but the sight of her classmates losing their lunches had her doing the same in sympathy. She managed to reach one of the disposal bowls though, Tarrlok notices enviously. Well, at least he managed to avoid getting any of it on himself. Yutu raises his voice to be heard by the whole class. "Many Waterbenders find the art of healing to be difficult to master. The feeling of being inside another's body is very intimate and can be disturbing. Your experience here is fairly typical for novice healers. Some of you are lucky and can handle the sensation just fine. Others of you are having difficulty now but will get better in the future. And finally, some of you will never get used to it and leave this class. There's no shame in that. Healing isn't for everyone."
Ahnah raises her hand. "Is there any correlation between being a good healer and being able to keep your lunch down?"
"Well, if you want to be a healer, you're going to eventually have to be able to heal someone without vomiting. But no, there's no correlation between healing ability and … " Yutu paused to eye Nukilik who was still heaving, even though everyone else had recovered. "… stomach sensitivity. You all know Taqtu, who is the healer for the Royal family? It took her six months to get over her squeamishness. Every week for six months she was throwing up during the practicals. But she stuck at and became the best Healer in the North Pole. So I recommend you all give it a good try before giving up."
Tarrlok decided that he would make a show of staying for six months, but he was never going to become a Healer. Intimate, that was the word Elder Yutu had used to describe the sensation. He would have used horrifying.
Healing that fox-seal had felt like Bloodbending.
That same familiarity of knowing where the water (blood) was in the creature. Getting down into the flesh to enforce his will to enact changes. The sheer control over the body functions of a lesser animal. All of it was exactly like bloodbending.
Tarrlok had never bloodbent a human being. He wasn't going to stick around to find out what it felt like.
"But I thought the Northern Water Tribe was loosening it's gender restrictions on waterbending?" The flirtatious woman, a descendant of some wealthy Earth Kingdom merchant leaned forward and fluttered her eyelashes at Tarrlok. He smiled and didn't back away when she gave him a good look down the front of her dress. Republic City needed her money, to help fund the food banks that he and Tenzin wanted to set up in some of the poorer districts. Putting up with her blatant advances was a small price to pay.
"They are, although it's still not quite there yet. My combat class, for instance, had a ratio of two male students for every female student. My healing instructor, another example, was one of the first male Healers to ever be trained."
"Your healing instructor? But you said you don't heal?"
He flashed her a charming smile. "I guess it's just something I'm not very good at."