Arming Oneself
II
o0o0o0o
What happened next was a series of flashes. Yinrong and his two friends looking at her with horror and shock as she lay on the ground, trying to get up, why won't her arms move? A piteous whine escaped her throat, but no one moved forward. The three boys started whispering to one another.
She's going to die, no one can live like that!
Are you sure? Shouldn't we get a doctor, or...
No! Think about what will happen to us!
… Oh.
Yes. Best to leave her, she will die soon enough.
She was left in the darkness, her arms numb, her shoulders burning. She tried to move, but was too weak. Then there was Wen, with an older man, someone she'd seen on the street a couple of times before.
Thy took her in here, and...
I see. The injuries are severe, but you just might have saved her life. Stay with her, and I will get a medic. The man draped his coat across her, before he left. Wen sat next to her, his eyes filled with horror and regret.
I'm so sorry, Ming-Hua. I didn't think they would... this...
She couldn't answer. She wanted to speak, but she was too much in shock. What happened to her? She couldn't remember any more after hearing Wen's words.
o0o0o0o
The smell of bleach was the first thing she registered as she drifted to consciousness, and she opened her eyes to bright light. Hadn't she been in a dark place before?
She tried to get up, but there was something wrong. Something... missing. She wasn't quite sure, and tried to get up again. A frustrated whine escaped her throat as she squirmed around in the bed, unused to the lingering effects of morphine, which made her feel... Well, not quite numb, but it almost felt as if she was floating somewhere near her body.
She lay her head back on the pillow, hearing footsteps in the hallway. She knew where she was, her mother had been in a hospital several years ago after the miscarriage.
Yinrong. She remembered what he tried to do, and what happened. Well, she was in a hospital, so she must be all right, then? She was safe and warm, so Yinrong couldn't hurt her anymore. She kept telling herself that, but as she slowly drifted into a clearer state of mind, she became more and more aware that something was wrong.
She turned her head, seeing bandages around her shoulder. She'd been placed in a hospital smock that was a bit too big for her, so she could see the bandages within the open collar of the smock. The bandages seemed to wrap around her entire upper torso, and she recognized the bulkiness of pads on her shoulders.
What for, she wondered. She started to lift her arm. Where was her arm? Her brain didn't want to accept the mounting evidence that there was something wrong, so horribly wrong, that the actions of a stupid and petty boy had enormous, unwanted repercussions to her life, and her future.
She tried to move her hands and fingers. There was nothing. Her brain sent out commands that were not received, because the intended recipient of said messages simply no longer existed. No fingers to wiggle, no hands to form into fists, no elbows to try to brace herself and rise from the bed.
She hadn't been able to scream before, but now she did. Anger, shock, horror, pain, bewilderment, and confusion melded together in a mire of emotion that very nearly shattered her mind as she opened her mouth, shrieks filling the room and pouring out of it.
o0o0o0o
They'd tried to save her arms, she was told. The doctor had attempted to salvage as much flesh as he could, but her arms had been so charred that amputation had been the only viable option. She had severe burn scars along her shoulders, and the doctor had told her it was a miracle she was still alive.
"But I have no arms! That is no miracle!' she argued. Her mother wept in the corner.
The doctor couldn't respond to that.
o0o0o0o
The aftermath of the incident showed Ming-Hua just how unjust the world could be. She learned at a younger age than most children how cruel life could be, with the loss of her father, her mother's health issues, and their long poverty. Even then, she'd remained optimistic. She tried to be a good girl, and to work hard at her studies and Bending, and helping her mother. Growing up in this city, she was not the naif that her father was. She had a future, and would one day support herself, and her mother, and if she had a family, support them as well.
How was she supposed to do that now? She was a cripple, someone who couldn't feed or wash herself, or do the most basic things that countless living souls took for granted.
Not only that, but those responsible for the loss of her arms went by unpunished. Yinrong and his two friends lied, telling the police that she was the one who had lured them to the site in an attempt to seduce them, changed her mind, and ran away.
Yinrong's father was also the grocer who provided the food to the family that employed her mother as their maid. Not only that, but the man was also cousin to the wife of the family, and with enough money, Yinrong went unpunished while she was labeled as a tease and a whore – such a label for a girl who had barely just begun to bud into a woman – and money did for them what honesty didn't for her. Wen was pressured by his father into changing his story, so it was Ming-Hua and her mother on their own.
Her mother lost her job, the family saying that they could not allow the mother of a girl of such ill-repute to tarnish their household with her mere presence.
It wasn't as if everyone believed that Yinrong was blame-free. Ming-Hua hadn't been the only person he bullied, but what could other children do for her?
Their neighbors tried to help. Mother would do odd jobs around the building for rent and to pay the medical bills – something that Yinrong's family should have been responsible for – but the spectre of her father's bad luck seemed to haunt them.
Dealing with the ostracism, especially since it was undeserved, became too much for her mother. She cursed this city, and decided it was time to go back North.
o0o0o0o
Being back in the city of her birth should have been welcome to the armless girl. After all, she was with family again, and unlike most of the citizens in the Earth Kingdom city, her family believed everything she and her mother told them.
Nonetheless, it rankled her to feel their stares of pity. Without arms, how could she Bend? How could she support herself, or lead a normal life? They would take care of her, and she should have been happy for that, but she didn't want to be a charity case. She didn't want to be tolerated and tended to merely out of familial duty.
Weeks turned to months, and Ming-Hua learned how to use her feet for certain things. She managed a limited semblance of independence, but not much was expected of her. Who would want a bride with no arms? She was expected to be a burden on her family for the rest of her life. Her aunts, uncles, and cousins tried to be kind to her, but she could still see, and feel their pity as they regarded her, especially if assisting her with something she was unable to do for herself.
o0o0o0o
Self-pity slowly ebbed away over the next few years, giving way to rage and depression. The things that'd happened to her father, and to her, were committed by people who had gotten away with their crimes unpunished, while her mother was left with the burden of widowhood and caring for a disabled child. Yet, what could she do about it?
What she missed most of all was her Bending. So much had been taken from her, including the ability to manipulate and enjoy her element. She was surrounded by it, in the form of water and snow and ice, yet she could no longer even have the simple pleasure of rolling up snow in her hands, or feeling the coolness of ice under her fingertips.
All because of the cruel, thoughtless action of a boy who thought himself better than her, merely because he had more money than her. And to add insult to injury – an understatement if there ever was one – he suffered no repurcussions for his actions. Here, had he been a member of the Water Tribe, he would have been expected to become her steward, giving her the use of his arms for whatever she might need, and the entire community would make sure he compensated for such a heinous crime.
o0o0o0o
Her sixteenth birthday came and went, and her melancholy and rage deepened with each passing day. Her mother was an attractive woman even if she looked worn, and Ming-Hua knew that if she wasn't in the picture, there were men in the city who would be happy to marry the widow. However, no one wanted the burden of an armless step-daughter. She couldn't help but feel bad for her mother, even though Mother kept reassuring her that it was not her fault, that her situation was not her fault. She appreciated her mother's efforts, but the truth was hard to deny. She might not have arms, but she did have eyes and ears.
No one wanted an armless wife either, so when her birthday came and went without any marriage proposals, she was not the least bit surprised, even though she had to admit to herself that it did hurt. All people saw when they looked at her was the 'poor armless girl', and that was it. And people wondered why she preferred to be alone.
She would often go off by herself, despite her mother's worry about the relative helplessness her armless state brought her. She didn't like being around people because she knew they pitied her. It was easier just being by herself, and she'd learned to compensate for not having the use of her arms to balance her should she stumble, and she'd also learned to navigate the ground more carefully with her feet.
One thing that calmed her was the ocean. Watching the waves crash on the shore provided her with a welcome distraction to her melancholia, yet sometimes she couldn't help but feel frustrated that she no longer had mastery over her element. She could feel it around her, but could do nothing about it!
It was a mild spring day – mild being a relative word at the North Pole – and she felt the sunlight on her face as she looked out at the water. Her mother had clad her warmly in a parka, and she was feeling too warm – yet she couldn't remove the garment, at least not without a ridiculous amount of effort.
She so longed to splash some of that cold seawater on her forehead, but she did not dare lean too far lest she fall into the water. How could she swim without arms?
Damn this. Damn everything. Death would have been kinder for her than this... existence. That was all she did, exist. She'd considered killing herself many times before, and if she was conscious of anything that stopped her from doing this, it would be the grief her mother would feel over the loss of her remaining child.
There had to be more to life than this. If she were to be happy at all, she needed more control over her life, but how was that going to happen? So much had been taken from her on that terrible day. As she thought about it, her rage kept building, bubbling under the surface. Unlike her mother, who had been so beaten down by life that she seemed incapable of anger, Ming-Hua embraced her own, unable to let go of the maelstrom of emotions that ebbed and flowed through the last few years. It was almost like a high for her, that surge of anger she felt at times, red-hot and blinding, searing through her almost like the lightning that had almost killed her.
She was blushing now from her rage, and the warmth of the parka was suddenly too stifling for comfort. If she had arms, she would just take it off and toss it aside! Why did she have to be so damn warm? That water looked so cool and refreshing, and if she could only reach out to cup it, and splash it on her face, and...
She blinked as she felt water dripping from her chin. The ocean breeze blew on skin that was now wet, and she shivered.
Did I really do that? Bending was supposed to come from a desire to manipulate that element, and the art itself was essentially exercising your will over said element. She'd wanted water on her face, and she got it. She looked around, just to make sure that no one else had done it.
She took a deep breath, and tried to Bend some more water. Nothing happened. It'd been nearly five years since she'd Bended at all, She started to feel angry and frustrated again.
Damn you! She glared at the water, as if it had personally decided to affront her by not responding to her attempts to Bend it. This time, the water moved as she wanted it to.
o0o0o0o
Ming-Hua decided to keep this a secret from her family, even her mother. She went off on her own whenever she could, and found out that her pent-up rage, hatred, and frustration actually helped her to channel her control.
She imagined her will extending through the stumps at her shoulders, and learned to form new arms for herself. These arms were short and rudimentary at first, and she was only able to hold her will over them for several seconds before they disintegrated.
Almost daily, she would observe the lessons of the Waterbenders, sitting off to the side and watching the teachers and students Bend at various levels of proficiency.
In this endeavor, she found that she could use pity to her advantage. The teachers left her alone, what harm was there in letting a young armless woman watch the lessons? It wasn't as if she had much else to do anyway, being armless meant that she was unable to do most of the chores expected of any ordinary person. She spent some time in the healing huts as well, but much preferred combat-style Waterbending. Soon enough she became such a regular fixture at teaching sessions that no one commented on her presence anymore, or even seemed to notice her, and the lessons went on. She listened with a keen ar to everything that could be said about Waterbending, internalizing it and applying it to her own private practice sessions.
So she watched, observed, studied, and practiced. She learned to manipulate her water-arms for longer, seconds quickly turning to minutes, and then even to hours. Arms that had barely been half a foot when she first learned how to make water-arms for herself, grew to several, and then even dozens of feet, giving her a reach that no armed person could ever imagine.
It took many years for one to become a Master of any Bending art. By the time she neared her nineteenth birthday, she was able to perform the most advanced moves and techniques she'd observed in lessons. Her new arms also allowed her to move in such a way that an ordinary person would have found impossible. She could scale ice-cliffs, bound from one ice-floe to another, and even use her arms to swing from one outcrop to another in movements much like a monkey's. She could launch herself into the air, and give herself a safe landing.
She was confident that she could defeat the Masters in the city, but she held back from that. She hadn't pushed herself to master her element just so she could challenge the teachers. She'd done it for herself.
o0o0o0o
Not long after her eighteenth birthday, Ming-Hua had noticed that her mother seemed more sickly of late. She would go to the healing-huts and come back better for a while, but inevitably she would worsen. She would insist she was fine when any concern was addressed to her, but Ming-Hua knew her mother well enough to know that there was something wrong.
Inevitably, there came the point where her mother could no longer deny it. She had an illness that not even a master healer could dispel. Such diseases were known, and dreaded, for their slow, difficult decline. Though the family didn't come out and say it, Ming-Hua knew that they dreaded the day where care of the armless woman would pass from her mother to her in-laws. They would take her in and see to it that she had what she needed, but it was only out of a sense of duty, and little else. She knew she was not the most pleasant or friendly person to be with, given her long silences and anti-social tendencies, though she did her best to be polite and respectful.
Now that she could Bend again, she didn't need her in-laws. She could take care of herself, though of course no one knew that. She'd worked so hard for nearly three years to master her Bending in secret. She knew that if people could see what she was capable of, she would draw admiration and awe, but she wasn't interested in that.
Ming-Hua was silent as her aunt attended to her mother, bringing her some hot soup and tea as she rested in bed during one of her bad days. She sat on a stool near the bed, waiting for her aunt to leave.
"Everything all right? You need anything?" the older woman asked her niece. Ming-Hua shook her head, and her aunt left the small house that Ming-Hua shared with her mother. Some of her family lived next door, or in other houses down the block, so there was always someone on hand to help the poor widow and her armless child.
"Oh, Ming-Hua." Her mother's voice was a whisper, and Ming-Hua looked back at her. She knew she had gotten her looks from her mother, the long, straight black hair and the pale skin. Both of them were attractive by conventional standards, even though one had no arms and the other one had illness and exhaustion etched into her face.
"Is something the matter, Mother?" she asked. She was able to take care of her mother in some ways, using her mouth or feet, or a rod with a hook attached to the end of it that could be facilitated for certain tasks like dressing herself that she held with her teeth.
"I worry about you. You're my daughter and no matter what happened to you, I would take care of you. Now I can not even do that."
"I can take care of myself."
This brought a wan smile to Mother's face. "You have done well in terms of... learning to live with..." She paused before she continued, "It has not been easy for you, and no one in their right mind would hold this..." She glanced at one of her daughter's shoulders, "against you for not being able to do certain things. You have your family to watch over you. They will not abandon you."
"They're not too keen on the idea of taking care of me, either." Ming-Hua replied with a touch of bitterness in her voice. "You know how they look at me. How everyone looks at me." Even her own mother looked at her that way sometimes, when she thought Ming-Hua wasn't looking, but the armless woman was tactful enough to not point that out.
The older woman was silent for several moments, and Ming-Hua was happy that she wasn't saying some useless thing to try to cheer her daughter up.
"I have something to show you, but you must promise to not tell anyone!" Ming-Hua said, filling the silence.
Her mother raised her eyebrow, but nodded. Ming-Hua rose to her feet and twirled around, ice from the walls liquefying into water and forming the prostheses that she'd mastered.
A soft gasp escaped her mother's lips as Ming-Hua smirked. "You have a fever, Mother. Let me soothe you." She raised one of her water-arms and gently laid the tip of it across her mother's forehead.
"How did you... when..."
"Almost three years ago, something happened when I was on one of my walks that made me realize I hadn't lost my Bending, after all. So I practiced on my own, and..."
"That's why you kept watching the Water Masters." her mother concluded.
"Yes. I practiced everything I saw. It was not always easy, but these arms are even better than my old ones. I can climb cliffs. I can move from one ice floe to another. I can shoot myself into the air and give myself a safe landing. I can even create an octopus. I can do anything the Water Masters can do."
"Why didn't you tell me? I can't Bend, but you know I would have done what I could to help you."
"I... wanted to do this by myself." Even Ming-Hua couldn't answer that question clearly. Was it because she was afraid of the other students or even the Water Masters making fun of her? Was it because she had not been sure of her own capabilities back then? She had to admit to herself that when she realized she could still Bend, doing so without arms would be a challenge, and she had not been sure if that would limit her in any way.
Of course, she had went beyond any perceived limitations, but back then she didn't know that. If there had indeed been any limitations, then she need not embarrass herself in front of others. As she mastered her element more and more, she had merely stayed the course. "Back then, I was just so surprised, and was not sure how others would react or what I might or might not be able to do, and..."
"I understand." Mother seemed to enjoy having the water-arm on her forehead. With a bit of focus, Ming-Hua shaped the tip into a rudimentary hand, it's 'palm' covering more of Mother's skin. "So what do you intend to do?"
Ming-Hua gave her mother a tight smile. "Revenge."
Her mother let out a slow breath. "I know I should tell you that revenge is petty, that it accomplishes nothing, that hatred festers in people like poison and all that, but..." She took a slow breath as she stared at her daughter. "What was done to your father, and you... was not inconsequential."
Ming Hua closed her eyes for a moment, happy that her mother was not condemning her for it. To be frank, she would have wanted revenge regardless of her mother's feelings, but it did help that Mother seemed to be trying her best to understand her daughter and her motives.
"I have long prayed that the men who hurt my husband... and the boys who hurt you... would face consequences. It is clear to me that I will see no recompense for my husband's death. But you have a chance to strike against those who wronged you. For what was done to you, I would be wrong to tell you to not feel angry about it. How could someone possibly... let go or forgive something like this?"
Ming-Hua smiled. Her mother reached out with a hand, and Ming-Hua raised her other arm, forming a hand on this one as well. She took her mother's hand in her own, wrapping watery fingers around it.
"I have only one thing to say, daughter of mine. Be careful in how you execute your vengeance. Do not let it be your downfall."
o0o0o0o
Her mother died several months later, and after the funeral rites and mourning had been observed, Ming-Hua packed what she needed and disappeared from the city, presumably on one of her walks. A search would be conducted, of course, but soon enough people would conclude that she had either drowned or fallen into a ravine. Her family would not say it outright, but they would be relieved, telling themselves that her suffering was over and she was in a better place.
Mother certainly was in a better place. She would be with Father, and the two of them could be happy together. Ming-Hua knew that in due time, she would see them again, but she was in no rush. She had too much to do, and accomplish in this world.