Chapter 7
Kay was wondering what she should say. She supposed she could relate having never really felt at home. But she struggled to put it into words. Ethan laughed again, and Kay was almost happy to see his cheeky grin, it seemed to be his default expression.
"Well it's not much," He laughed, but it seemed slightly out of place. "But it's better than I have a family and I go to school," He tried to tease Kay by gently pushing her shoulder. She smiled. It suddenly felt easy to smile with Ethan.
"Ahem," A fake cough made Kay jump. She turned to look at the source. An elderly man stood at the spiral stair case entrance. "Care to introduce me to our guest." The man aimed at Ethan. Ethan ran down the steps two at a time, Kay followed more hesitantly.
Ethan stopped to bow to the man, putting his hands together oddly.
"Master Bei Fong, this is Kayleigh. Kayleigh, Kayleigh come on," She was still half way down the steps when Ethan started introducing her, so she ran the rest and gave a short awkward bow. "Kayleigh, this is Master Bei Fong." He said impatiently. He then turned his full attention to Bei Fong, and Kay had the impression she was turning invisible. "I found her, I found Kayleigh," Ethan looked like a puppy wagging his tail waiting for a treat.
"I see that Ethan." Bei Fong turned to Kay "It's good to finally meet you Kayleigh," Kay just looked at him shyness getting the better of her. How did these people know her name?
"You too," She said quietly from over Ethan's shoulder. The old man chuckled at her shyness.
"Follow me; I'm sure you have a lot of questions." Bei Fong turned and walked into the corridor previously labelled as "Library". The corridor was only a few meters in length. When they came to end it opened out smoothly into a dark wide room. Bei Fong moved to a set of switches on the wall.
"Hmm, that's funny," He muttered to himself. He then turned all the switches around, and the large room lit up revealing its true splendour. It was filled with row after row of dark brown shelves, each filled with tomes, dusty old books, scrolls and even the odd glass case containing some artefact. Ethan lent down to Kay's ear
"Master Bei Fong built the whole place using his earth bending,"
"His what-" She asked but either didn't speak loud enough, or was just plain cut off,
"It's supposed to look like this giant underground ancient library own by this owl spirit," Bei Fong looked back at his guests, and motioned them to follow him down one of the isles.
"Follow me, oh and we may have company." Kay followed behind Ethan nervously rubbing her wrists. They were both a couple metres behind Bei Fong.
"Christ Kayleigh, you're hands'll fall off if you keep that up." Kay looked down at her wrists they were slightly red, but she didn't understand what his problem was. She sighed,
"It's Kay by the way. Not Kayleigh. I mean Kayleigh's on my birth certificate, and that's what my "parents" call me." She put parents in quotes "But my friends call me Kay," Kay had exactly one friend who called her Kay, and she moved away a year ago. But Kay had liked having a nick-name. Ethan raised his eyebrows,
"'s'cute." He said. It was obviously meant in an off-hand way, but Kay felt like she was blushing all the same. Don't look at me, don't look at me, and don't look at me. She thought while simultaneously wishing away her uncalled for blush. Although Kay didn't see it, Bei Fong smiled.
They reached the end of the isle where a space had been cleared for reading. There was a bench and table like in the main room, a couple of candles were lit on the table, and piles of books stacked up, and on the bench sat a small girl, Kay guessed around 14, nose deep in a massive old book.
"Doing some late night reading?" The Asian girl's head shot up. She quickly turned her eyes to Ethan, then Kay then back to Bei Fong. She looked a little embarrassed and smiled as she slowly closed her book and put it back on the table.
"Urm, well yes."
"Don't you think it's time you went to bed?"
"Yes..." She started to gather the books up, it seemed impossible that such a small girl could hold so much "I'll just put these back," The pile became precariously tall, and Ethan rushed forward and took the top half off of the pile.
"Here I'll help," He said smiling at the girl. She blushed and hid her face before murmuring a "Thank you".
"No problem," He said breezily. Key could see her growing smile behind her book pile. It was clear Kay wasn't the only one to find Ethan so attractive. They moved off into the various parts of library. It was just Bei Fong and Kay. She started to wring her wrists nervously again.
"Now I'm sure you're wondering why you're here," Bei Fong removed a scroll from a near-by shelf, and rolling it out over the length of the table, "I know Ethan likes to talk, but often not about the important things," Kay kept silent, it was true she had no idea what she was doing here, but the whole thing about this place seeming like home, seemed pretty important. Bei Fong motioned her over to the scroll, "Come look."
She walked over the table, and saw four pictures, of four people in various poses. "Do you know what these people are doing?" Bei Fong asked, Kay just shook her head and carried on studying the pictures. "They are what used to be known all around the world as bending."
"A kind of martial art?" Kay asked.
"Well. Yes and no. It has often been used in combat and defence, but it has other uses. Bending is the... art of moving something with your mind. So to speak." Kay stayed still, He's absolutely crazy. They're all crazy. "There are four elements that can be used in bending. Earth, water, air, and fire. Benders use the energy from their spirit to move their specific element, these movements, amplify and direct the energy. It takes years and years to master. That is why the students are here, that's why we try and find the young benders. So they can learn their element, until they have mastered it."
"So you only get one element?"
"... Yes. Although, each generation. An avatar is born. One person with the power to manipulate and master all four elements. But the avatar is another conversation. I do not know why, but ages ago, bending seemed to die out. It stuck around in peoples' minds, uh, kung fu, karate, etcetera. But people with the actual skills to do this," He pointed at the people moving earth, air, water and fire in the scroll. "Haven't been seen in centuries." His face brightened considerable when he looked at Kay and said "But, it was not forgotten. My mother could earth bend, and her father, and so on, and so can I. And it was prophesised, that one day bending would seem to disappear, and return to save the world, and with that prophecy came 5 names, and 4 nations." He opened the second the scroll, it was a map of the world, and each continent was one of four colours. "This is how the world used to look, divided into four nations, that's how we knew where to look, and who to look for. And I have found my fourth person with you. He opened the glass case and Kay could see the faded brown parchment more clearly. Bei Fong pointed to her name, and read out what was there "Kayleigh... ...water tribe," He chuckled lightly "As if I couldn't tell from your complexion and blue eyes that you didn't once come from a water tribe," He smiled as if that was all the convincing she would need.
"So, I can move water with my mind and movements. And you can move earth. Can Ethan too then?" She said trying to hide how sceptical she was.
"Yes, Ethan is a water bender too, that girl you just saw, Lei, is an earth bender like me, there is another student, Assad, who is a fire bender. We are just missing, a Joanne, who is our air bender." Ethan came back just at that moment.
"Lei's gone to bed. And all the books are back where they belong. So," He turned to Kay, "You know everything now?"
"Yes and it's wonderful, really," She was feeling so tired, she tried to check her phone surreptitiously it was REALLY late. "I'm sorry for keeping you up so late, and if I'm honest I'm feeling really tired myself, so it's probably best I go home now." Ethan looked confused,
"Home, don't you want to... I mean you have a dorm with your name on it, you can stay?" Ethan said as if there wasn't any reason why she wouldn't want to stay in a dark, underground, unknown place with strangers. Bei Fong smiled,
"Ethan I think you should escort Kayleigh back to her house, she lives so close, she doesn't really need to stay here does she?" He turned to speak to Kay, "The dorm is a last resort, and really just for those who want to travel with us."
"Travelling?"
"Yes, I expect we'll be moving on in a couple of months. To find the air bender. Ethan?" Ethan, who looked confused beyond being confused, suddenly relaxed his features into an easy shrug.
"Alright, each to there own, lets go."