▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃ CHAPTER THREE ( the spirit i am ) ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
HARA TIGHTENED her arms around her son as he was leaving for weeks. She was a mother after all and was going to miss Koya. "We'll be careful. I promise." Koya chuckled, patting his mother on the back. He'd maybe be only nineteen but he had already traveled the entire world. Somewhere he didn't understand why she always cared this much since he was away a lot. Koya expected his mother to get used to it by now.
Shaking her head, she accepted her son would never understand how it feels to miss a child until he had his own. "I'm just saying it's a long trip," she encountered.
"I know and that's why we'll be careful." with that words he hoped his mother to calm down. He wasn't lying, however. On long trips, it was indeed important to be careful since there was much land to cross with several climates and folks.
Hara turned to Akuma who had been watching the mother-son moment. "You too, Akuma. Be safe." She smiled as if Akuma was her own child. That poor child, she couldn't help but think, I hope she makes it back to her family.
Akuma folded her hands together, giving a slight bow to Hara. "Thank you and thank you for your hospitality." She smiled, all though she was happy to go home, she was going to miss Hara and her husband. At least she could stay a little longer with their son and therefore stay a little longer in some way with the couple as well.
"You're ready?" Koya smiled.
"Always." she pulled her backpack on her back, signaling she was indeed ready to leave for their first destination.
Together, the two of them got aboard the ship and waved Hara goodbye as the ship took off.
THE WAVES were softly crashing against the boat in a steady rhythm. Akuma focused on that sound, the sound of the water, as she looked down the railing into the ocean. Koya told her how Zaofu was only an ocean apart but somehow that seemed like a lie to Akuma. Just an ocean, she thought, there has to be more.
Koya notices Akuma's hypnotized stare in the water and walks up to her, "Penny for your thoughts?" he asks, leaning on the railing next to her.
She signed out frustration, still thinking she misses something in her travel to the South Pole but decided to focus on where she's going. "What's Zaofu like?" She asked as the only places where she had been being her village and not too far around that. Her eyes kept glued to the waves.
"It's the metal clan. There are so many metal benders there. It is one of the safest cities in the world." Koya described. He had been a lot in Zaofu and was always happy to return. Since he was close friends with a family living there, he was always welcomed as part of the metal clan.
Tilting her head, Akuma showed how confused she was with the term 'metalbenders'. For all, she knew there were only four elements and metal wasn't one of them. "Metalbenders?" she repeated, curious about what Koya meant by that term.
"Yeah, like Toph." His gaze sparkled in excitement. Toph was a hero and he had heard endless stories about how she helped to defeat the Fire Lord alongside with Aang and the other members of the former team avatar.
Akuma still couldn't follow him. "Who's Toph?" she questioned, thinking it was simply something only the Water Tribe knew.
Koya narrowed his eyes. "She was the first metal bender and helped to defeat Ozai," he answered in a duh-tone as he expected she'd heard at least of Toph. Still, she seemed dumbfounded by his explanation. "You've really not heard of her, have you?"
Shaking her head, she answered. "No, I don't think so." She was digging through her memories to find the slightest trace of what Koya all explained to her but nothing matched anything.
Tapping his chin with his indexfinger, Koya hoped to name something she did know. "Zuko? Have you heard of Zuko?" He suggested since Akuma was Fire Nation and therefore should know the current Fire Lord.
"Zuko?"
"He's the Fire Lord now." He explained, hoping to clear up the confusion. But still, Akuma couldn't recall a 'Zuko' being the Fire Lord. "Are you from a different time or something?" Koya eventually asks as he concludes that she didn't know anything from this time.
However, that was the exact fact Akuma was struggling to believers well. "I don't know." She looked down at her hands which were tightening onto the railing.
Koya noticed her knuckles turning white and knew she was somewhat scared as she had no idea what happened. He knew he had to distract her. "You said you were from the Fire Nation. Are you a fire bender?" He acknowledged, hoping to change the subject.
"I have the power of fire." She held out her hand, enlighting a small flame in her palm. "I never gave it back to the lion turtle." she tightened her hand in a fist again, obliterating the flame before looking at Koya.
Koya's eyes widened in realization. "Wait, you weren't born with fire bending?"
"No one is." She answered, confused by the fact he thought she was born with the fire. As far as she knew, no one could be born with an element. At least, that was what her father taught her.
Now everything seemed to add up in Koya's mind. "You are from a different time." He concluded, a little stunned by what he just presumed, "We don't lend from lion turtles anymore." he explained since Akuma was still thinking elements came from the lion turtle and not from the spiritually in the heritage.
She sighed, realizing what the time difference meant. "So I did die," she comprehended as she'd connected the dots. The nightmare of last night wasn't simply a nightmare but also a memory of how she died.
Koya's gaze snapped onto Akuma. "Wait, what?" Now it was Koya's time to be confused. He'd never expected her to mention anything about dying.
Her dark blue eyes fell on the waves again. "Last night I had a dream how a spirit doomed me to live in a burned forest forever," she clarified, the memory flashing through her mind again.
His stance softened again, letting go of the scare. "You didn't die. You became a spirit." He muttered, his eyes gliding back onto the waves. Koya had heard stories about how humans turned into spirits, he loved them but never expected them to be real.
Again, she tightened her hand around the railing. At this point, she knew what happened but still missed the 'why'. Also coming back as a human was strange to her as well. "Then how can it come that I'm in a physical body again?"
Koya sighed. "I don't know." Even after the many stories he had heard about humans transitioning to spirits, he had heard none of them turning back.
"Great."
"Maybe the people in Zaofu know what happened," he inferred since the people there always seek their highest potential, meaning there has to be at least one person in Zaofu who knows about the history of the spirits.
Akuma was actually quite satisfied with that answer and nodded her head in agreement. "Okay, let's hope for that then."
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