Pro-Bending Circuit Round Three: Addiction
Position/Team: Waterbender, Capital City Catgators
Prompts: pretending to be a baby
only one person has dialogue
Word Count: 1,809
Bonus: Use of element

Whenever her earliest memory starts to fade, Yue sneaks into the Spirit Oasis to recreate it. She bundles tightly into a faded blanket and slips into the water. With eyes squinted, the image of the shimmery moon above her morphs into the face of her father, beaming down at her, smiling. The sound of her mother's laughter enters the picture—her family is complete. The water feels cool, but Yue is warm. She is crying, but she is happy.

Yue discovers the origin of this memory when she is old enough to hear about her birth, a bittersweet story of when she almost died and the moon spirit granted her life. Maybe this is what draws her back to the oasis nearly every night?

Her parents are rarely happy, if ever. There is talk of war behind cold closed doors and icy voices speak of fire, death and destruction. Yue feels torn in her visits to the moon spirit. Should she pay homage for the gift of life? Should she petition for the lives of her people? She cries out in her confusion, like she did as a baby that first night. She just wants her family to be happy again.

It begins with the blanket, the very same one she was swaddled in at birth. "Yue, put that ratty thing away!" her mother scolds. "You're not a baby anymore!"

At age seven, she starts sucking her thumb. Her mother is appalled. "This behavior is most unbecoming of a princess, young lady!"

Then come the bouts of uncontrollable crying. Her mother finally relents and rocks her to sleep. This is nice, but still, nobody is happy.

Next Yue tries baby talk, the cute babbling that always received praise when she was first learning to speak. She is met with disapproving looks and overhears her mother murmur to others, "Don't encourage her. She's only doing it for attention."

Yue starts to wonder during her now nightly visits to the Spirit Oasis if there is a reason why she sees her father's face and never her mother's. He is always there waiting, smiling. The surrounding laughter, however, has developed a sinister quality to it. Yue shivers at the sound. There is no longer warmth here like she once found.

Chief Arnook is too busy and cannot be bothered by his daughter's affliction despite his wife's constant urging over the matter. By the age of ten, Yue sees the healers on a regular basis. The flowing water soothes her choked and twisted chi—she doesn't sleep much these days. She's intrigued by the work of the waterbenders, their calm demeanor and their purposefulness, too. She realizes with sudden clarity that she wants to stop the baby act. She wants to grow up now. She wants to be helpful to others, instead of a burden like a baby would be.

It's not that easy, though. The lead healer, Yugoda, offers her an apprenticeship, and the new project keeps her busy enough during the day. But at night, Yue still gnaws on her old baby blanket, toddles her way to the Spirit Oasis, and cries herself to sleep in the shallow waters under silvery moonlight.

Whenever her mother speaks to her, she throws a tantrum akin to that of a two-year-old. When her father looks at her, brows knitted with concern, she remembers a time when he smiled instead. So, she cries, because that's what babies do.

At age twelve, her mother won't rock her anymore, but Yugoda will. The old woman tells her stories of the war, terrible and true. She doesn't sugarcoat anything as adults often do. Yue feels less like a child and not anything like a baby even though she insists that her mentor cradle her like one. Yue falls asleep in Yugoda's arms and for the first time in years, she does not visit the Oasis.

She doesn't the next night, either… or the night after that… or the night after that.

At age thirteen, Yue makes amends with her mother. At age fourteen, she sits at her father's side, learning the ways of their people. Someday she will rule the North Pole, and the world is still at war. It is not a time for childsplay, and there will be no tolerance for tantrums or tears.

At age fifteen, she is introduced to Hahn. She wants to cry but doesn't. Hahn can never know her weakness.

Shortly before she turns sixteen, her father senses a Fire Nation threat and strengthens security around the Spirit Oasis. Yue doesn't visit anymore, but now that she can't, it makes her uneasy. Her father also wishes to solidify the future of their people, so he announces her engagement to Hahn without even asking her. The engagement party is a grand affair, and for the first time in nearly sixteen years, Yue sees her father smiling at her. Once again, she is a baby—her purpose now clear.

Yue knows of a secret passageway to the Spirit Oasis, and there she cries and screams and curses at the healing waters that granted her a life that was never her own. Born of the moon but dead to this world, she curls up in the fetal position until Yugoda finds her hours later still shaking and sobbing.

The next day, after Yue takes a bath and a nap, her mother confides that her own marriage was also arranged, and assures her daughter that everything will be OK. Yue takes little comfort in this and swears she will never force the same fate on her own child. The thought of having a baby with that Hahn sends her right back into a fitful state.

Old patterns rekindle as Yue continues her usual work during the day, serving her people and pretending to love a man she hates. The passageway to the oasis is closed off, but she forges another and slips away to visit there every night. She doesn't really feel like a baby anymore, and she doesn't conjure up visions of her family, either. There is just an odd comfort in crying until her body convulses, like if she emptied herself in the place where it all began, maybe she would be happy again.

Happiness comes on her sixteenth birthday, carrying a boomerang and wearing a confident smirk. Her mother observes the way Yue's eyes linger on the Southern Water Tribe boy's features. The voice of reason and a woman's intuition speak in hushed tones to her daughter, "I know he is handsome, but also unrefined." When Yue tries to pull away from the unwanted advice, her mother grabs her arm and emphasizes, "Your father would not approve, plus Sokka will only be here for a short time."

Time spent with this Sokka is pure bliss for Yue, although short-lived indeed. When the need to confess about her ties to Hahn arises, tears well at the corner of her eyes, and her knees go weak. She wants him to coddle her, but then Sokka might see what a baby she can be. He seems to understand, though, that she doesn't love Hahn, and is appalled by the tradition that would force her to marry someone she doesn't love.

For a second, she considers running away with Sokka and his friends, giving up her birthright and all that comes with it. She would not miss Hahn's arrogance or her mother's imposition, but she might miss her father's smile… or her regular rendezvous with the moon spirit. Yue has grown to accept her purpose here at the North Pole, as long as she has her coping mechanism. Yugoda once told her that most people, even great leaders, have their vices. Hers isn't so terrible, is it? Only the healer is aware of the addiction—how Yue craves the sensation of tears dampening her skin and the comforting rocking motion she uses to lull herself to sleep in the solitude of the oasis. Yugoda is the one who later hides the baby blanket in the bushes and coaxes the princess back to bed to avert any suspicions.

A husband would notice her nightly absence, though. Now that she's sixteen, of marrying age, their union could happen at any time. Chief Arnook is currently distracted by the Avatar's agenda and the fear of an impending invasion from the Fire Nation. It's not an ideal situation, but Yue sees it as a reprieve all the same. Once the black snow begins swirling, signaling the attack, her whole tribe becomes a flurry of activity. Through it all, she can't find her father, her mother, not even Hahn.

When she came into this world, the first face she saw was her father's, beaming as brightly as the full moon at its peak in the sky. Tonight, the moon does not shine at all, and she is crying again, like a baby, so uncertain and new. Sokka reaches a hand toward her, but when she doesn't take it, he looks hurt and confused.

She plunges into the oasis pool, and a new memory surfaces, one Yue has never recalled before now. Her father's smile—she remembers it so fondly—immediately turns to a frown as he wordlessly hands the swaddled newborn to his wife. Yugoda is there, too, and her eyebrows raise in question as the chief storms away from the oasis, leaving a chill in his wake. Yue's mother explains, her voice wavering, "Arnook was given a vision when she was born. The moon spirit will need our help someday. It will require… a great sacrifice." Yugoda then embraces the woman and child as both erupt into tears. "My baby," her mother wailed. "I never want to lose my baby again!"

Yue flails about in the water, frantically searching for her mother now, but something pulls her under, like a dark force trying to claim this light of hers—this sudden revelation. Yue is still a baby! She always was, she always tried to be, can't her mother see?

The darkness is death, however, and it is also part of her destiny. She wasn't meant to grow up to marry Hahn and fight the Fire Nation seated at his right hand from an icy throne. She was meant to fight it right here, right now. Born of the moon and dead to this world, her sacrifice tonight would not only save her people, but all people. This is her purpose, and she is no longer angry or afraid.

So, baby Yue becomes the moon spirit.

She is bright and beautiful like a proud father's smile. She is a thin sliver, like a mother's furrowed brow or a healer's worried frown. She covers the world in a blanket of comforting light, and she rocks the seas to sleep every night. And every morning, her tears dampen the earth with drops of dew.