Chapter 12

It was the day after my meeting with Rhaegar and we were back in confinement in the Tower of the Hand while Aerys was still Aerys-ing about, waffling between the line of the living and the dead. It's been like what? Four days or so? I'll give him a week. Or two. I had no clue what was going on with him currently and being a child, people weren't exactly keen on giving me updates on the situation nor did I have the ability to skulk about eavesdropping on the gossipy servants.

So for lack of anything else to do, I was choosing to spend my time meditating with another gold dragon coin in hand.

I vaguely remembered Kuvira crushing a gold necklace in one of the episodes so I was pretty sure gold could be metalbent but I wasn't fully sure.

Metalbending was sensing the earthen impurities left within the metal itself after the forging process and bending those trace elements to achieve metalbending.

Was gold too pure of metal to be bent?

Nah, surely not. Karats was how gold purity was determined and while it was a bit of a shot in the dark, I doubted medieval forging could achieve the ninety-nine point nine percent purity of twenty-four karat gold, nor was naturally found gold that high in purity anyway.

I refocused myself, scattering away unnecessary thoughts.

Sitting on my bed to avoid any distractions to my seismic sense, I rhythmically tapped against the coin in my hands, metaphorically banging against the door like an over-eager salesman.

I was on the right track, maybe. I think there was a form of feedback from the coin, but it was so utterly faint that I couldn't even tell if it was more a phantom sensation than any actual reactivity from the coin. Even my first success with earthen seismic sense returned more solid results than what I was doing now.

Still, I was hoping someone was home and I would keep knocking until someone came to answer the front door.

The world was a distant thing, faded from my senses as I tuned myself against the coin in my hands.

Dawn had given me a taste of metalbending so I wasn't going to give up. I knew I was capable of it, I just had to cross that final step from the impossible to the possible.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

I knocked relentlessly.

For minutes or hours, I did not know as I lost myself in the rhythm of the motion.

At least until the metaphysical door finally slammed open, startling me with its rudeness. My eyes widened in surprise while I audibly gasped.

"Cersei?" I heard someone call out, worry in their tone. Lanna or Jaime, I wasn't sure but I was too focused on the piece of metal gripped in my fingers.

To anyone else, it would have looked like nothing changed. I was still sitting crisscrossed on my oversized bed with a gold coin in hand.

To me though, the world might as well have suddenly opened up.

The coin shone to my senses. I noticed the feel of the metal rang differently compared to earth in my earth sense.

It was… Distant? Muffled slightly?

I wondered if it was something inherent to metal since I was detecting the trace earthen elements within them or if it was a skill issue that would pass as I became more familiar with bending metals.

"Is everything all right, Cersei?" That was Lanna.

I smiled, widely and honestly while replying. "All right? Everything is utterly fantastic."

The culmination of years of slowly toiling manifested as I opened my palm and commanded the coin to hover.

It did so.

Unevenly and in a constant roll, and willing it to stop seemed to do nothing.

Hm.

Definitely need more practice with this.

But Jaime and Lanna looked impressed at least.

"What's happening?" Jaime asked with wide eyes as he scrambled over to see.

"Metalbending!" I cry out excitedly.

"Metalbending?" Jaime repeated before his expression shifted to one of excitement. "That means you can add metal to the sculpture you made!"

Oh yeah! I completely forgot about that. "I gotta practice with it first though! Don't wanna risk messing it up."

"So this is the metalbending you mentioned," Lanna murmured from the side.

"Yup! It's a specialized bending skill under earthbending!" I tell her. "Been working at this forever! Next up is lavabending!"

"Lava? You can control lava, Cersei?" Jaime asked.

"Well, I don't know yet. Metalbending is a skill that can be taught but I dunno about lavabending," I tell him honestly.

Kyoshi was a known lavabender but I couldn't remember if Roku was ever shown to do so. I did remember that the show originally implied that it was an Avatar-exclusive ability, perhaps a dual firebending and earthbending discipline to achieve it at least until Korra's show introduced it as a rare ability.

The problem was that in the original show, they only manipulated existing lava as far as I remembered, none of them seemingly creating it from scratch like Bolin and the lavabending villain could seemingly do.

Well, it doesn't matter! I'll figure it out eventually!

"Does waterbending have any subbending skills, Cersei?" Lanna asked hopefully from beside me.

"Waterbending huh?" I teased. "It does have a few yes… But before that."

I leaped off my bed to land on the ground, sending out a pulse of seismic sense out into my surroundings. My excitement got me a bit carried away but that's no excuse for caution.

The first thing I noticed was that I was in the clear. There wasn't anyone watching outside my doors nor was there anyone in the walls with an ear cupped against the stone or anything like that. The second thing I noticed was that the details were sharper than before.

Huh.

Looks like finally cracking metalbending upgraded the sensitivity of my seismic sense a little bit.

Neat.

My range hadn't expanded but there was very likely a cap to it that no amount of skill or sensitivity could bypass.

"Sorry, had to make sure we weren't being listened in on. Anyway, waterbending. Waterbending has three subbending skills associated with it." I put three fingers into the air which Lanna was staring at intently. "The first, as you've seen me do, is healing. You're probably at the level where I can start teaching you the skill. It is super useful. The second is…" Bloodbending I was about to say but hesitated. Should I even let the world be aware of its very existence?

"The next is…" Lanna repeated, clearly put out that I cut myself off.

"Promise me you won't mention this next skill to anyone, ever."

An expression of confusion crossed her face at my sudden demand but I wouldn't relent at this.

"I promise," she finally said.

"The next is bloodbending," I admitted.

"Bending… Blood?" Lanna inquired with a tilt of her head.

"What is blood but not a form of water? A waterbender of sufficient power and skill can twist the blood of a person's body or even crudely puppet their body."

Lanna gasped. "That's horrid."

I nodded in agreement. "It's not a nice ability. Thankfully, it takes an immensely powerful waterbender to start with, not to mention the necessity of needing a full moon."

Jaime cocked his head. "Why a full moon?"

"Some of the elements we bend are stronger at certain times. Waterbenders learned their abilities from watching the moon and its influence on the seas. Firebenders from the sun. When the moon is at its fullest, it lends strength to waterbenders. Conversely, firebenders will find their powers waning during the nights but waxing when the sun emerges."

Jaime nodded in acknowledgment as he listened to my explanation. "What about earth and air?"

I shrugged. "They don't have anything like water and fire as far as I can tell. There are no situations where they get stronger but it also means they have no moments of particular weakness."

"What other waterbending skills?" Lanna asked eagerly, trying to get us back on course.

"Ah. Well, besides healing and bloodbending, there's also spiritbending."

"Spiritbending?" Jaime and Lanna asked out loud simultaneously. "What is that?" Lanna followed up.

"Its…" How in ROB's name do I explain spiritbending? Do spirits even exist here? "It's a variation of waterbending healing, but used against spirits. In my dreams, I've seen it used to pacify and cleanse corrupted and rampaging spirits."

"Doesn't sound very useful to me," Jaime said bluntly.

"I mean, you're not wrong. I don't know if there are spirits." Westeros might be in trouble if spirits did exist here.

Lanna was looking a bit disappointed at it though.

"I think there's also plantbending too?" I add with a finger on my chin. "Which is manipulating the water inside plants. In my dreams, some waterbenders lived inside a swamp and attacked their foes with lashes of vines."

She perked back up at that. "For now though, let's just keep working on waterbending Lanna. Foundation is important after all and I'll start teaching you some healing. In fact…" I turn to point at Jaime. "Don't be afraid to get a bit roughed up Jaime! Lanna and I will patch you up."

Lanna and I giggled but Jaime just blanched.

Back to metalbending!

I called upon the coin on my bed and with a pulling motion. Responding to my will, it flew through the air and into my open palm.

I would never get tired of that.

Adding metalbending to my repertoire made me even more dangerous considering the armor of choice here was all metal.

There were so many things I could do now and in the future. People could threaten me and I could be all like,

Ha, you dare?

And rip their very metal weapons out of their hands.

Hehe.

I'm going to be such a badass!

I could grab the metal armor of people and toss them around like some kinda cheap telekinetic!

Mwahaha!

Could I pull a Neo and stop a rain of arrows with the palm of my hands?

I couldn't wait!

No no no, calm down Cersei. Don't be counting your chickens before they hatch and all that.

Like I told Lanna, foundations first.

With the coin in my hand, I started running through some basic earthbending exercises.

Very quickly though, I realized that metalbending was a bit of a different beast from earthbending.

The hard rigidity of metal meant the freeform manipulation of earth shaping wasn't there.

How the hell did Toph wrap herself in a suit of armor?

Jeez.

I had a lot of work in front of me.

Still, the thought I could be like Kuvira excited me. I wasn't sure about the whole armor and iron shoulder pauldrons but while I thought her character was meh in the show, her fights, or fights involving metalbenders in general, were some of the best the show had to offer.

I couldn't wait!