I Don't Own Avater The Last Airbender
"Don't run too far away you two!" I got some shouts of 'ok' as they continued to run off into the tree line, I just sighed before shaking my head as I turned back to face Inaru who was currently stirring the stew in pot over an open flame. She gave me a grin at my reaction to my exasperation. I love them, a lot, but some times they're just a bit to crazy and hyper.
"Let them have some fun, it's the first time they can run to their hearts' content in like a month" She was right, they had been getting really anxious had way to much energy at the end of our body guard stint. So I suppose I couldn't be to annoyed at them, it's just some times it was a bit much. I guess I could spend this time relaxing for myself as well huh? That would be nice.
"Yeah, I'll go out and get them in a while, right now I just want to enjoy the small break in silence I got right now" She giggled at that as I leaned back and enjoyed the dun beating down on me for as long as it would last. It was slowly turning into fall at the moment and the air had begun to become a bit nippy but thankfully today it was nice and warm out. Of course I could warm myself up internally even if it was cold, but this was easier and more comforting.
So I just sat there, listening to the sounds of birds and the crackling of the flame I had made somewhere off to the side as I rested my eyes. I was also pretty glad to done from the guarding. My time in the military got me use to guard duty in a different way, and needless to say I spent large portions of the night awake and only got a few naps in during the day, most of which were interrupted by my hyperactive kids wanting to play.
It was clear that Inaru was also doing something similar after the first two weeks when the bags under her eyes began to be a bit painfully clear, so after some talking we came up with a rotation which we sound have put in place the first night. It helped but I still had only averaged about four to five hours a night which had made me a bit grumpy not going to lie.
I was a bit more use to lack of sleep than I'm sure is healthy but this long without a proper rest was beginning to get to me, it's why I was quite happy with this little break from the kids so I could just relax for a bit. Not to say they annoyed me, that wasn't it, but sometimes you just have to be alone for a while to get back to working order. Inaru was kind of the same, it's why she wasn't talking either at the moment even when the two of us were right next to each other. There just wasn't anything that needed to be said.
I didn't know really how long I had been sitting there, in fact I probably fell asleep at some point during the time I had my eyes closed to just listen to nature but I knew it couldn't have been that long right? Inaru would have woken me up when the stew was ready for our lunch, and yet as I broke my eyes open and looked up at the setting sky, I knew I had been resting far longer than I had thought.
Sitting up, I looked around for a long moment, just wondering what all I had missed and why hadn't anyone woken me up, after a moment of searching around with my eyes, I found the trio that I had been looking for. Sitting next to each other having a quiet chat was Bahi, Buo, and Inaru. I blinked before slowly standing up and making my way over to them. Inaru was the first to notice me as she looked up away from the kids and said.
"Oh hey, I was expecting you to sleep through the night" I blinked as Buo got up and ran up to me and hugged my side, I just reached down and returned the hug, still pretty confused as to what was happening at the moment. So I did the only thing that came to mind, I brought my questions out to be answered.
"What did I miss?" Inaru giggled a bit as Bahi blushed a bit and looked away, I blinked and looked down at Buo who was looking up at me with a happy smile before happily saying.
"You were tired Dad, so we stopped Miss Inaru from waking up you up!" I blinked as I looked over at Inaru for confirmation, to she she just giggled again as she nodded. I guess that answers that question. I felt a light smile pull on my face at that. They really were sweet kids most of the time. With that I looked over at Bahi for a moment, noting she looked a bit embarrassed about being called out on it so I just said to them.
"Thanks you two. I really needed that" Buo's smile just grew while Bahi's embarrassed face turned into a prideful one, clearly glad she had made the right choice. It was adorable. With that I moved up along with Buo over to the two girls and sat down pulling Bahi into a hug as well, to which she instantly gave one back. I just chuckled before asking in a slightly embarrassed voice as my stomach rumbled a tad.
"Did you three happen to save me anything from lunch?" That got a multitude of laughs out from the three as I myself laughed a bit as we all sat around the small camp fire that Inaru must have made herself with a flint. My eyes still felt heavy, but I could catch up completely on my sleep tonight, but for right now I just wanted to sit down with my family and just relax.
I was currently moving through the paces of a few forms of the basics for firebending. They were so ingrained into my head that at this point I found the actions somewhat relaxing at this point. I wasn't sure why I was running through the forms, I wasn't even bending through them, just mimicking the actions. I think it was because I was beginning to feel rusty.
Bending had always come somewhat naturally to me, it wasn't ever all that difficult to pick up new forms and I learned early on just how good I was at fighting, so when I recently started to try and introduce light firebending my kids, to try and start to hopefully help them with their fear, something that Buo had inspired me to do, I had instantly noticed my flames weren't as bright as they use to be.
It was from years of unuse I'm sure of it, I hadn't properly bended or even fought in four years now. It was a reality check really, I didn't want to fight anymore but if I had to, for Buo and Bahi, and even Inaru, I couldn't fail. Being rusty would only be a problem for that. It shouldn't take to long to get back up to snuff, I always learned quickly, and I still had these forms etched into my muscle memory. It's just I had to get back to being used to moving in these ways.
My body wasn't as strong as it use to be either but all the traveling has helped me keep in shape, and it doesn't hurt that my body is older as well so it's mostly balanced out. But that in itself was it's own problem, I'm use to being a bit shorter while I'm fighting or bending to be honest. four years of inactively and I've grow at least a good couple inches since then. I had to adjust to being higher off the ground, which had it's own weird problems to sort out.
But the world itself was at war, so having to sort through the problems was hardly a reason to not work my butt off so that's what I did. It was very early at the moment, I had woken very early myself and couldn't seem to go back to sleep for the life of me. The cons of sleeping for about half a day, you end up waking up at about three to four in the morning.
It was a small price to pay to have my sleeping schedule return to a more normal flow. I'll just have to be a bit sleepy for a bit during the afternoon, it wasn't a big deal but it did lead to what I was doing at this exact moment. After a while I took a small break, I was getting back into the flow of it. Making sure to not hyperextent and testing out my reach was what I was mostly messing with.
Correcting my breathing a bit wasn't needed, after I had started to bend my chi couldn't seem to stay still if I wasn't breathing properly, it was a problem that came with natural talent, but it was a problem I had long since adapted to and was more than use to dealing with it. All the same, I'm pretty sure everyone is still asleep so maybe I should start to bend a bit, to make sure I'm not all that out of practice. Might as well check where my upper limit is.
With that I took a long deep breath before setting myself into a stance before twisting my body to kick out a blast of flames along with a fist parallel to my leg and watched as a mixed cone of yellow and orange fire gushed out. Keeping the momentum, as my leg dropped to the ground, I spun on my heel and kicked out with my other foot and blasted a kick of slightly more golden flames burst into the night air.
Continuing from there with a mix of jabs, kicks, and arcs of flames into the night air. I was hopefully far enough away from the others to not wake up any of the kids. I had spent a good twenty minutes walking away. After a long while of just flinging flames around the clearing I was in, I stopped to take a couple minutes to cool myself down some. I was getting back into the groove of things a bit more but my fire's color was still a bit off to me. They weren't as golden yellow.
I sighed to myself, more than a little annoyed at the bare bones progress I've been able to make. With one slightly more angry punch of flames, I dropped my hands down for an actual break this time. It was childish to assume I would be able to just jump back up to the mastery I had obtained from a decade of intense training in a few hours, but it did hurt my pride a little to be honest.
"Aww, do it again, they were so pretty!" I blinked as I spun around to look to see who had said that only to see some kid looking at me expectantly. What?
"I'm sorry, who are you?" The kid just blinked before frowning as he jumped up and run over towards me. I wasn't to worried, the kid only looked to be about, I don't know, eight to twelve years old, it was hard to tell with how dark it was. Though I did find it a bit weird when he grabbed my hand and started poking at my palms like there was a button to press to shoot out more fire.
"Come on work! Hey how did you do it?" I just blinked before a sudden cackle like laugh broke from my chest. That has to be the most innocent reaction I've ever seen from someone in regards to my bending, it was cute. Doesn't change the fact that I had no idea what was happening.
"Ran! Ran! Where are you?" I blinked as I watched in the very pale moon light as the apparently named Ran suddenly balked and went a bit white. Well, I think I'm about to have an interesting conversation. That feeling was doubled as I watched as a teenage looking girl ran out from the tree line, looked around, spotted the two of us, noticed the fact that it looked like I was holding the kids hand in the darkness, and suddenly a number of ice daggers were being hurled at my head... Oh come on.
More character's because why the hell not, it's not like I'm already bad at understanding emotions and that means I can totally just keep adding in diverse characters with a number of interesting traits with not problems, right? Right? Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm just writing but I'm not the best at family dynamics so I'm just filling the gaps in of that with more and more interesting characters that you all should like for one reason or another. Anyway, see ya.