The heatwave wasn't letting up.
The temperatures just kept climbing and climbing throughout the week until Jin felt like her brain was going to fry like an egg if she stood outside for any longer. So for the first time since starting her near-daily street performance routine, Jin took a short break.
There really wasn't anything in the way of weather prediction or meteorology in Ba Sing Se that she knew of, but Jin was very much in tune with the Lower Ring gossip. Considering the amount of time she spent out in the market, and the amount of kids she interacted with, Jin could pick up on the latest city news in a heartbeat.
And in the last couple of days the chatter had been nonstop.
There were murmurs swirling about. People yelled loudly, and talked quietly about it but it was kind of hard to piece everything together when Jin didn't know the context. She could pick up on the fact that something was going on, but she didn't really understand it.
Everyone seemed to be caught up on the shifting of the winds or something like that.
It didn't mean anything to Jin. But then the Father of one of the kids she watched after school approached her and told her that she shouldn't come to the market tomorrow.
Jin just stared at him in confusion.
"It's the temperatures," He explained when it was clear that Jin had no clue what he was talking about. "Every year around this time the winds change and blow northward, bringing the dry heat from the Si Wong desert up to Ba Sing Se. It can happen several times a month during the summer season and the worst of it will happen tomorrow. It should cool down the day after, however."
"Wait. Are you telling me that it's going to get hotter?" Jin asked in disbelief, "This isn't the weather's final form?"
"I'm afraid not. This is mild compared to what it is expected to be."
"Well dang, how hot is it going to get?"
"Enough to kill."
"...Ok, that's a little concerning."
"The worst of it will be over soon. We've already been feeling some of the effects of it, but it can get dangerous. Especially for people like you whose job requires you to be outside a lot."
"Right, so stay inside for one day?"
"Yes. I doubt anyone will be out in the streets. If you do need to work however, most people will be down underground. There's a large tunnel system beneath the city that is open to the public if cooling shelters become necessary."
Jin slowly blinked. "Underground tunnel system, huh?" she said, unable to keep the unease out of her voice.
"They're quite useful. I'll be taking my family down there myself. Although if you do get into the tunnels be sure to take someone with you. It's really easy to get lost down there. I've heard of people disappearing for days, but as long as you stick to the heavily trafficked routes you should be fine.
"Haha, yeah… disappearing…"
"Oh I'm not trying to scare you off from them, everyone who does disappear down those tunnels does end up coming back, it just might take them a few days to find their way to the surface. It's all perfectly safe, otherwise the authorities would have closed down the tunnels a long time ago."
"Uhhh sure. No. No, I'm good, I think I'll just stay home. Thanks for letting me know."
"It's not a problem! Just stay indoors, stock up on water, and if you need it, there are tunnel entrances to emergency underground cooling shelters everywhere in the city."
Jin heard 'Stay indoors' and 'stock up' and her mind immediately went into panic mode.
She wasn't going to take any chances.
Jin quickly thanked him and began making preparations. She notified the kids who attended her after school Storytime/Sing-Along and their parents that she was going to be taking some time off.
Then she stopped by the Tea House to make sure that Zuko and Iroh knew what was going on. The two were slowly becoming her friends and Jin just wanted to make sure they were ok.
With all that said and done, Jin wasted no time in launching into her doomsday prep. Basically it amounted to her hauling up water to her home by the bucket load since her home didn't have running water, and splurging on food and games that could keep her occupied.
Jin was from a cold climate. Give her below freezing temps and a blizzard and she wouldn't even bat an eye. Drop her in a heatwave and it's an instant knock-out.
Some might say she was over preparing, but Jin would much rather overthink things than end up with heatstroke.
For the next day or so, Jin stayed home.
It was an old, abandoned warehouse-like building in the industrial district, and empty for the most part. The structural integrity was too fragile, too unstable to be a desirable spot for other people living on the street to set up shop.
Jin herself was uneasy with the way the floors creaked without any sort of prompting, and how the decaying walls groaned and sometimes even fell apart with the slightest push of the wind.
But it wasn't as if her housing problems were unique in any shape or form in a city with such clear class divisions. Jin counted herself lucky that she was able to even find a spot where she could leave the few possessions that she owned for a long period of time and return to find them completely untouched.
She'd spent enough nights in the alleyways of the shopping district to know how truly rare that was.
And so Jin put up with the old rundown building. She didn't go running when chunks of the ceiling collapsed on her. She didn't complain when a floorboard caved from her weight. She didn't look for a new building to hide out in even when she found a nest of strange rodent-like creatures living in the northernmost wall.
She just avoided the most dangerous areas, made sure never to go up beyond the ground floor, and made sure to have escape routes mapped out in her head in the event the whole building came down on her.
And Jin stayed and made the place her own.
When she first moved in, she dedicated a whole day to scavenging, and dumpster diving to find wood planks and other pieces of timber that she could use to reinforce one of the smaller and more stable rooms of the building. She inspected the walls, tested the floors, pulled out moldy boards, chiseled away at cracked tiles, and cleared out anything that seemed sharp or dangerous.
It was a big renovation job. Jin felt like she was on one of those House Flippers or Renovation TV shows that she'd occasionally watch when she was bored. It was hard work but it was a lot of fun.
After a time, it started to become a cozy little oasis. With soft fabrics spread out across the floor so she could walk barefoot, pretty little fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, stars and galaxies painted on the walls, pillows for sleeping on arranged in the corner like a nest, and various knick knacks and trinkets that Jin had collected were tucked away in the crevices that were too big for her to patch up completely.
It was nice.
It was a place that she could call her own.
Jin was bored.
She finished writing up her corrections and analysis of Lani's story early in the morning so that it was ready for the next day. Then she played a card game with herself, folded some paper cranes, doodled a bunch of flowers on her wall, and perched herself on the wide windowsill and stared out at the dusty ground baking under the sun outside and fantasized about making a large batch of refreshing ice tea.
It was certainly relaxing, but Jin wasn't used to not having anything to do. It felt like she was back in Quarantine and she hated it. Even though she loved the little home that she had made for herself, there was a reason why she spent her time out among other people.
Being alone, cooped up in a small space was driving her crazy.
And for a lack of anything better to do, Jin fell back on an old desire that she hadn't spared too much thought about recently.
Figuring out if she was actually a bender.
Which, given what Jin had learned during her brief time under the tutelage of a real life Earthbender, she probably wasn't.
Jin still remembered the sting of the initial rejection after her first lesson. The twist in her stomach when she realized that even though she had been thrown into a fantasy world, she herself didn't have any powers. She obviously didn't have any powers to begin with, and there wasn't any reason for her to believe that she would just randomly develop those powers.
Still, it would have been nice if she could tap into the magic of bending. Stretch the fantasy out just a little longer. Add a few more mystical elements to her life.
So she tried. She put in some effort to figure out if she could bend any of the other three elements since earthbending was out.
To begin her impromptu investigation of her own magical abilities on this unreasonably hot day, Jin decided to start with air. Mostly because she was just about ready to kill for an air conditioner.
Seriously. This world didn't have ACs. Or any other modern appliances that made heatwaves more bearable. Becoming her own air conditioner would solve all of her immediate problems. She was Canadian. She didn't do hot temperatures.
As Jin paced back and forth in her room, she cast her mind back to her earthbending lessons. She recounted the conversations, instructions, and advice that the earthbending master had bestowed up on her. Anything that could potentially help Jin in her self-appointed task.
One thing that stuck out to her was Master Fo's surprise that someone as old as her was still trying to figure out if they could bend the elements. Actually, Master Fo wasn't the only one. Jin was pretty sure that the receptionist that she talked to at the Learning Center was also pretty skeptical of her when Jin asked to be tested for bending.
She hadn't thought much of it at the time, too excited about getting earthbending lessons from a seasoned professional to think of much else.
But maybe there was something to it.
Maybe bending was supposed to be something that came naturally or something simple enough for a toddler to do if they had the ability. Couldn't Korra already bend like, three elements to a certain extent when she was still a tiny little kid?
Maybe all Jin needed to do was jumpstart bending, if she had it, and then see where it goes from there.
Do something natural. Something that even a two year old could do.
What could an airbending baby do?
"Sneeze!" Jin suddenly exclaimed, her pacing coming to a halt as a slow smile creeped across her face. "I gotta make myself sneeze like Aang when he shoots up like ten feet into the air. That seems like it comes naturally enough to him. It'd be an easy way to test it."
Then she hummed to herself, looking around her room and considering all the materials that she had to work with.
What did she have that could make her sneeze?
The answer was not much. She was meticulous in keeping her space clean and dust free. She didn't have any spices or feathers for that matter that could induce a sneeze. She didn't have any peppermint either, her peppermint tea stash ran out last week and she hadn't gotten around to replacing it.
Of course she could wait a few days while the dust piled up in her room, but who had time for that?
Jin was trying to get all this experimenting done by the end of the afternoon. No need to draw it out.
Besides, she had a better idea than that. With a slight grin, Jin waltzed out of her home and made her way to the open air courtyard behind the building.
She stuck close to the shade as much as possible, but as soon as she stepped out for the cool shadows the full force of the Earth Kingdom sun hit her like a train. Jin managed to blink away the sudden brightness, but the waves of heat just washed over her completely and-
"Nope! Never mind! I choose life!" Jin said, then promptly turned on her heels and marched right back inside. Because after only a few seconds of being out, Jin felt like she was going to melt into a giant puddle of goo. There was no way she was going to be able to stand out there for more than a couple of minutes at most.
So there went her plan of face planting into the ground and snorting at the dry dust. Maybe she could do that inside and just lay on the floor for a little while? Maybe pick up whatever dust that was already there?
Yeah that sounded good.
It was floor time.
Hello sweet oblivion.
So turns out she wasn't an airbender. Big surprise.
Although the nap was pretty nice.
But there were still two more elements to go. Firebending and waterbending.
Jin decided to go for waterbending because she refused to be the ATLA equivalent of a gender-reveal-party-gone-wrong and set the entire city on fire in the event that she actually could firebend.
She could practically see the headlines now.
Nope. There was no way she was going to risk that, especially not in this weather. One day, maybe, but not today.
Instead, Jin started setting up for waterbending experiments.
She picked up one of her water bottles, chugged half of it, and then filled up one of the chipped cups from the Tea House that Pao had given to her instead of throwing it out. Jin raised the cup up to her eye and inspected the amount of water she poured in. Careful not to cause it to spill over, but also making sure that there was enough liquid in the cup that she could easily see if her attempts at waterbending succeeded.
"Hmmmmm," she hummed, turning the cup around in her hand so that she could see all sides of it. "Uh huh. Yup. Looks good. Alright, let's do this."
Then she hauled herself to her feet, placed the cup in the middle of the room, took a few steps back, and lowered herself into an athletic ready position. She waited patiently until the rippling water in the cup settled down into a stillness.
Jin closed her eyes and inhaled.
Hold.
Her eyes opened.
Exhale.
"Push-pull. All I gotta do is a push-pull motion. Straightforward and easy." Jin muttered to herself in one last effort to psych herself up. And with that said, she fell into the movements that she half-remembered watching Katara and Aang working on in the earliest season of the show.
Jin moved her hands rhythmically, back and forth. Push away, and pull back in. She made a conscious effort to make sure that the rest of her body moved with the motions as well.
She concentrated hard, staring intently at the cup as she said "Push. Pull. Push. Pull." in time with her steady movements.
The water didn't budge. Not even a slight disturbance. It remained as smooth and clear as a piece of glass.
Jin grumbled to herself and then adjusted her stance, switching her feet around and lengthening her arms more when she pushed.
Water was supposed to be all fluid and flowy right? So her body should be all loose and relaxed to be all flowy too, right? It was a thing that the element reflects the way that it's wielded right?
She adjusted her stance. She tried shifting her weight to the balls of her feet. Then to her heels. She tried for a straight posture, then a loose slouch. She flicked her wrists and wriggled her arms.
Just doing whatever and seeing if anything gave results.
Then Jin stopped and put her hands on her hips. "Maybe I just need some background music?" She asked herself, tipping her head back a bit so that she could stare up at the ceiling. "Wouldn't hurt to try. Maybe something water-themed to get the water-bending to work?"
But as soon as those words left her tongue, her brain turned to static and she couldn't think of a single song that related to water. Jin suppressed a curse as she pressed her fingers to her sweat-slippery temples.
"Water, water, water. Liquid. Rain. H2O. Wet. Come on! It can't be that hard to think of a song having to do with water! Watering, waterer, waterest, water-" she paused. "-loo. Waterloo!"
Excitement crossed her face for a brief moment when she thought she had finally thought of something to sing before it immediately morphed into a frustrated scowl and she buried her head in her hands. "Waterloo doesn't have anything to do with water! ARG! Then why does it have Water in the name?"
Her head snapped back up and pointed an accusing finger at the innocent cup of water, "Don't answer that question, it was rhetorical. I know the answer."
The cup did not respond.
Jin didn't move for a few beats, then she said, "Aaaand I'm talking to inanimate objects again. Great." The tension in Jin's shoulders lessened as she sighed.
She took a moment to center herself, and then clapped her hands together.
"Alright! One more time with feeling! Featuring some classic ABBA cause it's gonna take too much brain power to think of something else. Always do love me some good Eurovision oldies though."
Jin quickly fell back into her makeshift waterbending stance and started humming the tune. She bounced up and down on her heels as she started to get into it, the stress of trying to get this whole bending thing to work seemed to melt away as the first lyrics slipped past her lips.
My, my - at Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender
Oh, yeah - and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf Is always repeating itself
By that point, Jin had given up any pretenses that she might succeed at this. Without the pressure she was putting on herself, her movements were more free, more relaxed, a bit more erratic and definitely not as smooth as earlier. It was more like a dance than anything else. Her moving in time with the rhythm.
Waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo, promise to love you forevermore
Waterloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo, knowing my fate is to be with you
Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Waterloo Finally facing my Waterloo
Then something caught her eye. A movement. Was that-? It was! The water moved! There was a ripple!
Jin immediately cut off her singing, and dropped to her knees, hitting the floor with a loud bang. Her full attention was on the cup, and even if the Fire Nation army burst into her home at that moment she wouldn't have even twitched.
"Please be magic powers, please be magic powers, please be magic powers!"
A moment passed.
Then another.
Jin exhaled sharply through her nose. She leaned away from the cup and sat back on her heels.
A fly landed in the water causing it to ripple. She could see it struggling, feet wriggling in the air as it tried and failed to escape. The ABBA infused waterbending exercise had failed.
My, my - I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger
Oh, yeah - and now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight
Well that definitely wasn't ideal. But it looked like Jin finally had an answer to her bending questions. She could now say with relative certainty that she did not, in fact, have any magic powers.
But hey, there was no point in wasting the water when it was right there, so without any spare thought she picked up the cup and drank the lukewarm water with the bug and all. She was beyond caring by now.
Jin was ready to close the book on this whole bending thing. She was done.
And how could I ever refuse? I feel like I win when I lose
Jin groaned loudly and flopped down onto her back, spreading her arms out on either side of her. "Screw this, I'm taking another nap."
Author's Note:
The song used in this chapter is Waterloo by ABBA.
Hey, here's a slightly longer chapter than usual. Admittedly I had to split chapter 7 into two parts because it was getting really long but I couldn't cut anything. I promise that plot is happening here, it just might not make sense until the end.
Next chapter we will see the return of Lani, so keep an eye out for that!
Thanks for reading and I'll see you guys next time!
~Lost-In-The-Muse