Chapter 2

I started that day, but my training began in a way that was very unorthodox. Shifu Clare had me in water for hours. Just sitting there, or laying on my back. He would have me lay there listening to his stories. At first he talked about his training with my Grandfather. Then told me oh him and my mother being friends. Of how he watched her and fell in love with her. Then he told me of all the promises they had to keep when Grandpa went off to fight the man that he called Crenate, which he didn't know why he called him that either. As much as i enjoyed listening to Shifu Clare, I soon became frustrated. After three weeks I had not Bent at all. Though every day he said the same thing. "You failed your test, you'll have to try again tomorrow."

He wouldn't tell me what the test was, just that I had yet to pass it. That was all he said, and soon it was starting to piss me off. After two weeks of this nothingness, I finally snapped. "What am I supposed to be doing?!"

"Hmm?" He said, looking at me over his book as I lay in a lake

"Every day you say that I failed my test, but I have no idea what the test is supposed to be. How can I work to pass my test when I have no idea what that test is! You told me that my Mom and Dad agreed to this training when my Grandfather died, but I don't think they would like me not LEARNING anything!" I yelled at him. He closed his book before speaking

"You have failed your test for the day. We can begin tomorrow. Have a good night's rest, Daniel." He stood and walked towards the house. I felt the water around me rise with my anger. I felt a current form, and a whirlpool began to spin around me.

"I'm talking to you!" I scream, and as he turned around I threw myself at him with the force of the whole lake. Before I could make contact I felt something in the air. Almost as if it were drier, like the moisture had been pulled from it. A millisecond before collision my momentum stopped, the whirlpool that was propelling me forward fell to the ground. Shifu Clare had stopped me with a wave of his hand. With barely a movement, he dodged me and the water that served as my attack became his as I was swallowed whole.

When he levitated me -encased in a sphere of water- I felt something…. a twitch in the water. Then with the same speed that he used to stop me in my tracks, he threw me into lake. I felt another twitch in the water, then I was thrown to the surface, my hands and feet frozen in place. Only my head and chest were not encased in the block of ice that he formed around me. Once again I was helpless, once again I was defeated.

"What did you feel?" Shifu Clare asked me, meeting my gaze as the ice meted around me.

"I don't know for sure…" I said, my head bowed in defeat "It was like a twitch in the water."

"You pass." He said, and as I felt the twitch in the water again I was raised to my feet by waves he created. "Look at me, and tell me what it was."

I thought for a long time, and then I met his eyes. "It was the current. I felt the current that you created using you Bending."

"Correct!" He was all smiles now, he seemed happy and when he reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder I knew that he was genuinely proud of me. Once again this strange man reminded me of my Grandfather. He was truly something. "Now you have to learn how to BE water." He smiled from ear to ear.

"How do I become water? Is that even possible? I mean wouldn't I die?"

"You don't literally become the water, you have to figure out the meaning yourself. You have to figure the rest out for yourself." He turned away from me and started to walk back into the house. "You can send the night in the lake. Don't come inside for anything." He opened the front door and walked inside, leaving me alone in the lake. I leaned back in the water and floated.

Closing my eyes I began to listen to water. I felt nothing, heard nothing for a long time. I tried to calm my mind as my Grandfather had taught me. Listening to the sounds of the water, the fish and the weeds moving in the water around me. I couldn't hear anything…. I couldn't feel anything.

"Argh!" I pushed the water away from me, creating a wave. Frustration made me want to move, want to throw things. Then I remembered what Grandpa said, 'When you're angry and you need to move around, do Tai Chi, it's a lot better for you than throwing your hand through a wall. Plus you will find it helps you focus.' Then he would wink at me and continue to work on his model boats or whatever else he had going on at the time.

I stood up straight, my arms at my side. Closing my eyes I visualized my Ki. It was a yellow light in the core of my body, warm and flowing. I began to move my body, doing the motions that my Grandfather had taught me so many years ago. With each motion the Ki flowed through me. Every time I flexed my fingers or moved my leg I could fell the water part to make room for my body, bending to my will. I felt the anger begin to boil up inside me, fighting to be released. I continued to fight it off, my right hand touching the surface of the water -leaving it undisturbed- not breaking the surface. Raised my hand in an arc, but the water followed me, clinging to my skin. Only when my anger finally bust forward did it leave my skin. I released my Ki all at once, exploding it forward with my entire body. Without opening my eyes I could feel exactly what was happening.

A gush of water as tall as I am shot into the air, throwing its self forward with the full force of my anger. It was thrown from my position ten feet out from shore to touch the wood of our dock. Instead of being stopped as I expected the water sliced through the dock like a knife through butter, splitting the wood down the center until it reach the sandy shore. Shooting almost a full ten feet into the air, the splash continued for a long moment, falling to the lake below like rain.

Opening my eyes, I felt calm, cool and collected. I was not phased by the destruction caused by the water. Normally water was calm, as I was now. Though from time to time it would explode outward, destroying everything in the wake of its approach. Water was either a a cooling comfort or a enemy with unmatched patients.

My thoughts stopped me, I began to explore this idea. I began to see things about water that I never had before. I saw that water was patient and flowing, following the path of gravity without question. Water was alive, it breathed and fed and dried up. It formed large bodies or was trapped deep below ground. Water was much more then I had ever imagined.

"Water is alive." I said aloud, the thought replaying in my head, because it didn't sound quite right. It felt as though a piece was missing from the puzzle that i had just discovered. "No… water IS life!" The truth of my words hit me so hard it threw me into action.

Closing my eyes I allowed myself to sink into the water, fully submerged I floated to the muddy bottom. I opened my eyes once again, sitting up with my legs crossed and my hands in my lap. I put my hands around my mouth then slowly pulled them away, leaving fresh, breathable air around me. Then I calmed my mind, thinking nothing. Doing nothing but holding back the water so I could breath. I sat there for a long time, long enough that the moon rose high in the sky, shining its light on me, lighting up my face. The moonlight soaked into my skin, and though it was not full it gave me strength. For a moment I allowed my eyes to close, feeling the water that slowly shifted around my skin.

Taking in a deep breath I imagined the the water around me being pushed back, and felt my skin become drier as well as my clothes. Keeping my eyes closed I reached out and touched the water, breaking the surface with my index finger. Then everything slowed down around me. Everything started to make sense to me.

"Water takes on the shape of the container that it is in. It moves toward the direction that gravity pulls it. Only the Moon has the power to pull water from the Earth. The Moon is the true Water Bending." My eyes flew open, my concentration was broken and the water that was being pushed away from me once again came into contact with my skin. The Moon Bends all the water on the planet. Water is nothing but a tool to be controlled. It is collective, submissive, and formless. It is the forces of nature that shape water… but it is water that shapes the world. So water can't just be submissive. I… I see now, now I know what water is.

I was floating when I heard the back door open. I was completely still when Shifu Clare stepped into the water, walking then swimming to the place where I lay, moving to the flow of the water, bending to the unstoppable power of gravity.

"What did you learn?"

"That water is a tool" I said without hesitation

"What do you mean by that?" I shifted, the water parting around me as I face him, looking into his blue eyes I began to talk.

"Water is a tool used by everything. Even the smallest fruit fly uses water to survive, without this one thing it would be impossible to survive. Water holds the power of life and death, it is necessary for all life. Though this is true, and by this ideal water holds more power than anything but oxygen, it bends to the will of all forces on Earth. Water collects wherever it is allowed, flowing with gravity downhill. But even man can control water. This lake we are in used to go all the way up there." I pointed to an area halfway between the water's edge and the back porch our house. There was a large wooden pole that my Grandfather used to mark the place where he began to drain the lake. It was the waters edge almost fifty years ago.

"Water is powerful, but it is still very weak. It has the power to decide life and death, but it has no power to control that decision. What is life, but life is not water. Life is the combination of the actions of people, and nature. Water just happens to be one of those things that decides it. By that standard." I stopped, pausing to make sure I phased this right. "Water is powerless and the forces that control it, like the Moon are actually the things that are powerful."

He smiled, his blue eye bright with happiness and excitement. "You pass. You have seen what water is to you, and you have realized that water gives us power to control life. That it is a weapon to be used, but also I tool to be crafted. You have become a much better Water Bender because of it, and now your training can actually begin." propelling himself backward with Bending he was on the shore in seconds. I followed, also using my Bending to make it easier.

"The first thing you will have to do is Shifu the different types of water. Or if you want to be specific the different states of water. You have a good enough understanding of water, now it is time you learn to understand ice, and steam." He motioned for me to follow, then started to walk toward the house. "Did you ever find the secret room? The entrance is in your room."

"No I had no idea there was a secret room in the house."

"Did I say room?" He stopped at the bottom of my staircase, the began to climb the steps. "I meant a secret floor. A basement under your basement."

"How did I never find the entrance?"

"You never looked." At the top of the staircase he stepped to the left, turned to face the wall. "All you had to door was touch the wall." He pressed his hand into the wall, and it pushed open. Revealing a staircase. "You first."