English is not my native language and I translated this, originally in Spanish, by myself. Obviously there are mistakes but I hope the story to be understandable.
Hope you like it.
Second chance
Water, they say, is invaluable, powerful and changeful: just like the life it gives. It is, they say too, purifying and healing.
And 'they say' because he really doesn't know.
Despite being a waterbender; despite his breath synchronizing with the wave's rhythm; despite the moon, in any of its phases, gives him strength with its calm light, he doesn't really know.
He knows the implacable water, the furious water that razes everything in its way, the water that takes the life of the ones who don't respect its power. He knows the moon that makes him stronger than anyone. He knows the beat of a heart, the way of veins and arteries between muscles and nerves.
He knows destruction.
So when the water embraces him, encloses him, protects him and snuggles him in its inconstant flow, the sensation it's strange and foreign. But it is relief and peace what fills him when it does.
And he thinks, maybe, this is how water must feel.
The water surrounding him, however, reminds him more of the blood he also knows how to control. He realizes, without get heated, unashamedly, it is blood.
Blood and water coexist around him. And there, in the middle of the remains of a boat, in the middle of what presumably are remnants of human flesh, there in the middle of the water and the blood, there is him.
And it's a miracle he can identifies him as his older brother: because, definitely, that making its way to the surface it's human flesh.
He supposes he should have a deplorable look too, at least. And he supposes he maybe looks worse, because that floating over there looks a lot like his right arm.
However he doesn't feel anything. Nothing but the water that coos him and keeps him there, at meters of the surface, suspended above the ocean's abysm. Nothing except the smell of blood.
He wonders why he is not dead. He wonders why his brother looks at him and there is not resentment in his gaze: Perhaps Noatak didn't really believe that about starting again, maybe he didn't want to run away as their father did, maybe he understood that 'It will be like the good old days' didn't mean anything (no when they are everything but what they were).
He wonders too, how is that he just gave a deep breath in his attempt of thinking about the situation.
But the panic doesn't embrace him as that resolution hits him because, hey, that what is floating looks awfully like the rest of his body.
He looks at his brother again, and what he sees is not the image of a moment ago. It's not the man shattered by an explosion: it is his brother.
It's the child that looked after him with devotion. It's the teenager that defended him from his father. It's the man that whispered 'You are everything I have left'.
It's all of them and none at the same time, because the image changes and the blood in the water is making difficult to watch him clearly. But it's his brother.
And he wants to know if Noatak is seeing something similar. He wants to know if his image changes too (and the thought hurts, because if so, Noatak is seeing a child that always cried, a weak teenager, and a hopeless man who became everything he hated).
So when Noatak approaches to him (and he is not swimming, he is not being dragged by the flow, he is moving like the water but not in it), he wonders who is he looking for.
"Tarrlok…"
It doesn't cross his mind: Maybe he is looking for him.
And it's like the sound of his name didn't really came out of his brother's mouth, it's like the sound was not heard. But he hears it anyway and it enchants him.
So he looks for him too, he moves forward too and when he is near enough he hugs his older brother.
And the touch it's strange because it seems like there is not touch at all. It seems like there are not hands clinging on his back, it seems like there is not breath touching his neck. But there is. He feels it.
He feels it like he feels the water, like something inherent to him, like something that completes him, like something he needs.
He feels it, and it chills his soul.
The hug lasts an eternity that it's not enough to heal everything that needs to be heal.
When Tarrlok opens his eyes, not remembering when he closed them, the water is dark and there is no boat, not blood, not nothing around them.
It's dark and it's the little light of the moon that refracts in the surface what allows him to be sure that Noatak is still there.
And they look at each other and they smile at each other with all their smiles: With the smile of their childhood, full of life and love; with the smile of their adolescence that looks more like a grimace. They smile at each other with the smile of their adulthood, sad and empty.
They smile at each other with the smile of this, new and calm.
They smile with the smile of this (and Tarrlok finally knows why 'they say'), with this healing smile.
And maybe, maybe this is their second chance. And maybe now they have all the time of the world to heal, to their wounds to be washed by the water, to understand their element's true nature.
They have all the time to understand that, despite everything, it is not too late for them.
So yeah, I love these too and I needed to write something about them. I was trying to write incest at first, but then I just couldn't represent that kind of relationship here. Even so I like the result.
I would like to hear your opinions about what is happening in the story.
I hope you guys had enjoyed this, thank you for reading, every comment is appreciate.