Chapter 2 - A Choice
Hotaru sweated as she moved her way through a series of high ranking lightning bending forms. She practiced alone in the school's gym, her fellow students having decided it was better to vacate the area than risk a fight with the Firebender. Three days had passed since the Lightning Joust, and Hotaru felt as if the world were holding it's breath and deciding whether it should release or pass out.
Electricity discharged into the air as Hotaru finished a form she had performed five times previously. "Now you're just being a perfectionist," a voice stated. Hotaru turned around to find Sifu Surt standing in the doorway of the gym. "Isn't there anywhere else you can practice? Students who actually need to learn would like to make use of the gymnasium."
"Don't patronize me," Hotaru said. "There is nowhere else to practice. I'm still a student, remember?"
"Are you now?" Surt asked as he walked around the gymnasium. His nostrils flared and his chest heaved as he inhaled the distinct smell of burnt stone. "Do you remember your first lightning bending lesson."
"Yeah, it was two years after I came here. You said most of the students wouldn't last through winter," Hotaru replied.
"And if I recall you announced that you were the best fire bender in the world, and that you would graduate by then," Hotaru flushed at her teacher's remark. "I promptly called you forward for a demonstration, and you promptly landed on your rear ten feet away from where you had been standing after your first attempt at charging."
"I learned my lesson," Hotaru scowled.
"I thought you did, until you announced you were ready to graduate two years earlier than what is the minimum age for Firebenders. In all honesty Hotaru I thought I was dealing with a modern day Princess Azula," Surt said, and Hotaru's face turned darker.
"I'm not a psychopath."
"No, but you're arrogant, demanding, and impatient. You just couldn't wait for the proper time, and instead you had to rush into the Lightning Joust," Surt responded.
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing. The simple matter is that despite thick your head you were correct in your assumption. I have nothing left to teach you," Surt replied.
"So you'll pass me then?"
"No, that decision is up to the Witnesses though if it helps I'll vote in your favor," Surt responded. Hotaru stomped the ground and fire flared around her foot.
"It's not fair!"
"Life isn't fair. Sometimes all you can do is prove yourself worth. I know you've been fighting since the day you came here to prove yourself to everyone but you never will. I know there was a time in my life when I had to give up and move on.
"Are you telling me to quit?' Hotaru asked, genuinely surprised
"It's not quitting if the world won't let you win. But then again I'm just your master. I don't know anything about your skill," Surt sighed and Hotaru grunted. "If you could please vacate the gym by this afternoon. There are students here who need to practice."
***
"I'm sure they will let your graduate," Zi Fan tried to reassure Hotaru at dinner.
"I think they have spent the last three days deciding how to tell me I'm not," Hotaru said as she broke her chop stick and picked at her noodles.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine, why?"
"You'd normally be on your second bowl by now, and you passed on the forbidden peppers. Aren't those from the Earth Kingdom and one of your favorite foods?"
"Yeah, I'm just thinking," Hotaru lifted her bowl to her mouth and proceeded to slurp.
"You wonder why they won't pass you? You haven't even learned proper etiquette yet," Ji Nu made a comment as she passed the girls and over heard Hotaru's eating habit.
"Its polite in the Freestates," Hotaru said between mouthfuls.
"This isn't the Freestates." Zi Fan watched as Hotaru's eyes widen for a moment at Ji Nu's comment. She stared at nothing in particular before she stood and slammed her bowl into the table.
"Your right Ji Nu. I'm not in the Freestates. If you were raised there you would actually have the balls to insult me out right instead of your pathetic attempt to half handedly insult me in polite conversation. Now if you and that stick you have up your butt will excuse me I'm hungry for some noodles with Forbidden Peppers." Ji Nu stood there open mouthed like a gutted fish as Hotaru walked off and Zi Fan snickered.
***
On the forth day Hotary slept and dreamt of a world on fire. Flames burned every plant, animal, and person until they burned to ash. The seas boiled until there was nothing left but the carcasses of fish, and the earth was scorched until the landscape turned black. Yet despite the carnage and death, Hotaru feared what came after.
Though she didn't discover what it because someone pulled her hair and woke her up. "What..." Hotaru emerged from her sheets. "...are you doing here?"
"Lady Garuda has sent me to fetch you. The witnesses have made their decision," Ji Nu said with a triumphed look in her eyes.
Hotaru just smiled before speaking. "So you get to be the messenger girl? Tell them I'll be there as soon as I'm ready."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, I have to make myself look presentable."
***
An hour later Ji Nu was out of breath going back and forth between Hotaru and the witnesses. In a large class room Hotaru's judges waited for the girl to arrive. Hotaru decided that an appropriate response to her summons was to take a long wash and breakfast. Then arrive in purple clothing, the unofficial color of the Free States.
The witnesses weren't amused, in particular Lady Garuda seemed shocked though Surt completely contrasted the priestess with a bored expression. Hotaru sat in front of the witnesses, in particular giving her grandfather a long glare.
He was the embodiment of a Fire Nation noble. With his white hair in an elegantly arranged top knot, and his nails trimmed short though sharpened to precise points. The only indication that he was unsettled was a slight twitch in the inner corner of his left eye. "You took your time coming here," Garuda stated.
"I was just returning the gesture," Hotaru proceeded to slump in her chair and cross her feet.
"Hotaru, though you are a skilled and talented young Firebender your own control is questionable. We have decided to hold you back for another year of training at the end of which you can be tested again for graduation," the priestess stated.
"That's is?" Hotaru asked.
"That's it," Garuda repeated.
"Then I would like to make my own decision. I am dropping out of the Royal Fire Academy for Girls and returning to the Freestates. I am sure that the Firebending Masters of the Freestates will test me a second time and gladly accept my as one of their own. It has mostly not been nice knowing you all," Hotaru proceeded to bow and walk off. Leaving the witnesses in silence and shock...
Author's Notes: Heres the next update, and I want to take the time to respond to Yemi Hikari's questions because I think she makes some valid points. I'll start with the Avatar aspects. Its been nearly two hundred years since Aang lived. There has been two avatars between Aang and the current Fire Nation born avatar.
Now that the time thing has been explained I want to explain lightning jousting. Since Aang's time, Iroh's technique has become common place. Personally I could consider it a medium high level technique since normal lightning bending involves the creation of lightning, harnessing it, and then control it. The redirection technique is control which is admittedly difficult but something every fire bender starts to learn by the time they can walk. Also Hotaru is in the most prestigious Fire Bending academy in the world. They are going to expect a lot out of her.
As for the Airbender's return well that will be explained in story in the coming chapters.
I know the chapter is short and contains a lot of dialogue but they next one will make up for it. I will probably post it on Monday.