Forgot to put this in the first chapter: (still don't see why it's needed considering the site's name)
I do not own H2O: just add water, nor do I own Avatar: the last airbender.
After leaving Nema, she danced for days; she didn't want to think about it. Eventually, she had to stop; she had danced all the way to the mountain of the southern air temple, and it was time to climb up to it.
She danced onto the beach, but realized she needed some food for the climb, so she swam out at see to find some fish.
After eating a number of fishes, and catching a few to take with her, she dried off and started the hike.
An hour or so later, the sun started to set, so she decided to call it a day and sleep.
The next day she climbed all the way up the mountain. It wasn't easy, and without her crude skills with airbending, it would have been almost impossible. It was a good thing she wasn't afraid of heights.
When she got to the temple at the top, she was amazed by the size of it. It was a huge set of structures, and the effort taken to build them at the top of a mountain must have been huge – unless they had asked earthbenders to help them, of course… Come to think of it, they probably had.
After admiring the view for a while, she decided to walk to the temple, and ask for training. Hopefully, it would be as easy as it had been to get waterbending training.
As Cleo was about to enter the monastery, a bald kid in orange airbender clothes called out: "Hey! Who are you?"
He quickly came over to her, gliding on a ball of air.
"I'm Cleo" Cleo answered. "What's your name?"
"I'm Aang" the kid answered. He looked about 9 or so. "What are you doing here, Cleo?"
"I'm here looking for teaching" she said. "I wish to learn airbending"
"Really?" he said. "You're an airbender?"
She walked over to him and whispered conspiratorially. "Not a good one… yet"
He laughed. "Perhaps you can learn this, then…" he said. "Watch!"
He made a new ball of air, like the one he had been riding to get over to her, and jumped onto it. "Now you try it!"
She managed to make a ball, but it disappeared before she could jump onto it.
"You need to keep it going, Cleo" Aang said. "Don't let go of it!"
She tried again, and managed it. Steering it was another thing entirely, and she ran into a wall.
"Outch" she said, but then she laughed. "That was fun! Thank you, Aang"
"No problem!" He said. "Let's go meet the masters. You can ask them if they'll train you"
She was a little worried about that – she had heard most benders were male… "I hope they'll take me…"
"That shouldn't be too difficult" Aang stated. "You must be really good to pick up my ball trick that quickly. It isn't that easy to do…"
She was a little dumbstruck by that. Perhaps she was better at this than she'd thought?
Getting taken on by the airbending monks had been a bit more difficult that Aang had made it sound. In the end, Aang had persuaded his master, Gyatsu, to teach Cleo as well. That was fine by Cleo. Aang was a fun kid to be around, if a bit nosy sometimes. Then again, there was a lot Cleo wasn't saying. She hadn't told any of them were she came from, or anything about herself really.
Aang kept asking, but she never really answered. Sure, sometimes she gave some little thing away, but never anything important.
It had been a good few years at the air temple. She hadn't really made many friends – with exception Aang and Gyatsu, she was tolerated at best. When Aang was away for a time, it got a bit lonely. She had no idea what they thought about her disappearances around the full moon either… though she suspected that Gyatsu knew something. Still, those were easier here than they were with the waterbenders; here she could take her glider and fly down the mountain, and there was little or no risk of being seen during her storm dance.
At the moment, she was sitting on a cliff by the ocean, waiting for the full moon to rise. It would soon, and the night was free from clouds. She wouldn't dance for too long. She didn't want to raise to many questions, and made sure to stop dancing soon after the moon set.
The moon had set a short time earlier, and the sun was beginning to rise. She had just danced up a waterspout to get back on her cliff, and kneeled on the cliff. With a quick moment of the arms, she banished her storm out from land, letting the sun's rays fall on the cliffs. She was eerily calm after the dance, as she always was after ending it voluntarily.
After a few moments, she froze, for she heard a voice.
"That was impressive, Cleo!" It was Aang. "How did you do that? I thought only the avatar could bend more than one element, and that's supposed to be me…"
The monks had told Aang he was the avatar but a week ago. He was younger than was usual to be told, but there was a war brewing, so would have to be ready early.
Cleo was still shocked by Aang seeing her. This wasn't supposed to happen!
"Cleo? Are you alright?" Aang started to look a bit worried. "You look pale…"
"I… umm…" She panicked. "I must leave"
She jumped into the water.
"Cleo, wait!" Aang shouted after her. He then continued in a whisper: "You're the only friend I got left here, now that I'm the avatar…"
After a long panicked flight into the ocean, she acted much like she had after seeing Lewis give Charlotte the necklace Charlotte had taken from her. She raised a storm; not really dancing, but still creating a powerful, focused tornado of water, air and lightning. She just wanted to go home, and this was how she had gotten here.
Then again, she had no specifics on how to bend such a storm. She couldn't even be sure it was the storm at all; it might be something else that had transported her to this world.
She kept the insanely powerful storm going for almost half an hour; then one of her lightning bolts struck her, and she passed out.
She came to floating in the middle of the ocean. She had no idea were she was… and there was no land in sight. It reminded her of when she first crossed worlds... perhaps she was back in her own?
She swam for a while, and then spotted a fishing boat from the earth nation. Those ships she'd recognize anywhere; she'd seen so many of them. Then she wasn't in her own world. She felt her hopes being crushed. She would never be able to go back home… and Aang would probably not want to see her either, not after she ran off like that. Perhaps she could go back to Nema… No, she couldn't face Nema when she had shamed herself like this. She just couldn't.
Well… I'll live like a wild mermaid again. I've done it before, and it isn't that hard… being a mermaid really gives you a taste for raw fish…
Besides, the storm dance would grant her oblivion; she would rarely have to think about her wrongs and her shame.
Yet another couple of years had passed, and they had been much like the first ones she had spent in this world. She was, once again, the spirit of storms… At least, that was what she was called. She missed being Cleo. She missed it terribly. Perhaps she could go and see Nema… She wouldn't stay that long, but she wanted to feel human, just for a little while.
She swam south quickly, and in a few days time, she was in icy waters once more. It had been a long time since she had last been here… the years with Aang and the airbenders as well as those last as a mermaid.
I wonder what has changed… Has Nema got a new apprentice, perhaps? Or maybe she got married? I wonder…
As she looked at the place the village was supposed to be, she was quickly shocked out of her thoughts.
It wasn't there. It was simply… gone.
The only thing left was a bit of one of the walls.
As Cleo got close she spotted a fire nation helmet… and under the water, there was a sunken fire navy ship.
No… the war, the one the monks feared… it broke out.
Cleo knew where most of the villages where supposed to be. She'd just have to check all of them. Surely, Nema must be in one of them… Wouldn't she?
Most of the villages where gone – but eventually she found one that was intact.
But the tribe she had found wouldn't let her enter. She wasn't dressed like any people the knew – and they assumed she was a fire nation spy. But the short exchange of words broke her spirit further.
She asked for Nema – Nema was gone, dead or captured.
Then she asked for the rest of the village she had known – they were all gone.
She asked why there were no airbenders helping them, where the avatar was, and so on. The airbenders were totally wiped out – dead to the last woman and child. And the avatar, Aang, had vanished just before the war – on the very eve of her own mad flight from him.
He just might have gone after her, and gotten in trouble somehow.
It was all her fault.
If she had been there for him, he'd been fine.
If she'd stayed with the airbenders, perhaps they wouldn't have been wiped out.
If she'd gone to Nema, she could have saved her – if not the whole village…
She didn't really want to prove she was a waterbender to the tribe – why would she? She only seemed to bring death and destruction to everyone she knew. And if she didn't, they betrayed her, like Lewis did…
Lewis…
She had run from the tribe, dancing before she even came to the edge of the ice.
As she and the storm she raised, they whispered.
"The spirit of storms… She knew Nema"
"The storm spirit was here, in human guise…"
"Did you see how distraught it was? It just might make the fire nation pay for what they've done…"
She danced for a long time, before she, for the first time bending the storms, gave in to exhaustion. After the second full moon since she got the news from the water tribe, she stopped dancing – She was very tired, and stumbled. It broke the spell, and she fell into the water, falling asleep as she turned into a mermaid.
Her sleep was restless, and she dreamt of how the fire nation destroyed all she cared about – even her own world.
When she woke up, her mind was made up. She wowed revenge on the firebenders for Nema, Aang, Gyatsu, and all the others they had killed. They would pay – the spirit of the storms would make them pay…
Cleo spent years fighting the fire nation; their soldiers feared her greatly, but in the end, it was a futile effort. The fire nation decimated what was left of the southern water tribes completely. No matter how many ships she sunk with her storms, she couldn't be everywhere at the same time. The same went for the waterbenders; the fire nation warriors were just too many.
When the fire navy left, there were just a few villages and warriors left of the once strong and proud southern water tribes – and their benders were all gone. The few tribespeople that had survived had hidden away, and hidden well. The fire nation would have a hard time finding them. Even if they did, there was no real point of doing so. The South Pole was no longer any sort of threat against the fire nation.
Cleo knew she had failed. She had only managed to delay the inevitable. She knew she probably was the most versatile bender on the planet now that the avatar was gone – there had been no known avatar born to the water tribes, so either Aang was somehow still alive or, more likely, the avatar after him had been killed and there was now young earth kingdom avatar out there.
Cleo was sitting on a block of ice, waiting for the full moon to rise. She had nothing to live for now – she lacked purpose. She was going to give in to the moon sickness completely. She wasn't welcome anywhere as who she truly was, and as a wild mermaid, she wouldn't mind the fact. She expected her storm dances would still be danced – after all, the pull of the dance was irresistible under the moon. Being who she was, she would probably keep sinking fire navy ships – and save drowning people.
But she wasn't truly sure of that, nor did it matter anymore.
As to moon begun to rise into the sky, Cleo whispered softly:
"I have nothing left to loose but my grief… Grant me oblivion, oh moon…"
She knew no more… for a very long time.
Autor's note:
While I realize not too many will be reading this story (both series are rather new and not very well known) I still appretiate reviwes, thank you very much!
How else am I supposed to know what you think about it?