let The Healing Begin

Posts : 33 Join date : 2011-10-11

Nuo Stood on a bridge over looking a canal. Not one other person was in sight and the night was peaceful. The chill of the north wasn’t biting at her tonight and she was thankful, feeling the soft warmth from the lanterns around the streets and across the bridge. Looking out on to the waters she wondered about her coming training. Soon she would enter a special building, a healing hut. A kind of medical center where many female water benders worked, to heal those who fall injured in a number of ways. Those unfortunate souls require the use of the water benders special healing abilities. The water benders were known throughout the lands as skilled benders, but above being held for their ability to hurt and fight, one of their and some would say their GREATEST ability, laid in their ability to use the water to heal. It was an incredible and invaluable skill. One most in the world valued to a high degree. Before the war, a water bender was welcomed anywhere with open arms. Even if a water bender didn’t know the skill they generally had a good idea of how to help when it came to pains, wounds, and illnesses. learning the skill wasn’t easy, it required a good deal of concentration and hard work. Sure, many could learn it, simply if they were water benders and at least moderately skilled. The understanding of the water was what made it possible. Water was the base element that made up all of the people in the world. While it was generally understood, and she had always been taught that all the elements came together to make man, water benders knew there was more water in a person then anything else. That was one of the reasons she was always surprised there weren’t more water benders around.

Pushing up off her forearms, which had been resting on the rail, she began walking down the walk way, a layer of snow crunching under her feet with each step. She loved this place, with all of her heart. Learning this would allow her to help the people here, and when she left on her soon to come countless journeys around the world she could take this skill, helping the people of the world and making water benders welcome everywhere again. But first thing was first, she thought, her expression blank as she waked, lost in thought. She had to learn the stinkin thing. Arriving at the healing hut, she stood before the entrance, and looked to the sky...a gentle snow beginning to fall, the light white drops delicately touching down. The Hut, was a little more then a hut. Really it was a 3 story building, with what looked much like pillars around it, and a upper, 4th story that was for the head healer, the most powerful healer in the Northern Water Tribe and possibly even the world. Here she’d learn how to save lives, not just take them. The deeper understanding of water that would no doubt better her bending in almost every way. She inhaled deeply, the cool air clearing her head of any doubt or second thought, and she stepped forward, taking her first steps to really understanding water and learning hot to save a life.

Inside it was warm and a bit steamy, almost like a sauna, in fact in some rooms, there were steam rooms. She knew where to go, having been instructed earlier that week about her training. She had been told that with her skill level she would be receiving a special instructor best suited for her. Arriving at a room on the third floor, the light blue floor, and the dark blue wall and soft white light gave sight to a women standing over a man, bleeding from his arm. her hands were on his arm and glowing. She looked sideways, barely seeing her.
“Your instructor has been changed. Go upstairs please. they will let you pass.”
Nuo stopped, slurred some words in confusion and then abruptly turned away from the door a bit confused. New instructor? How odd, but better just do as the women said instead of questioning it. I didn’t want to look dumb or seem insubordinate on the first day. I went upstairs and as I reached the top It finally dawned on me what this was...My teacher had been changed to the Top healer in the North.....Surika Con. I stood, awe struck looking at the women in a dark blue gown, and white fur. She sat, crossed legged, her legs hidden under her gown, in front of a pool of water, on the opposite side from where I now stood. The room was a lighter blue then everywhere else and white decorations and beautifully decorated walls of blues, and whites. the room seemed more like a throne room, with a pool in the center and a large ice looking desk with some dark wooden drawers and selves, lined with scrolls and large books, behind it. The women had her eyes closed but I guess she knew I was there.
“Come in young Nuo. Sit by the pool. Relax, you were sent to me because I’m told you have incredible talent. I wish to see if that translates to healing as well.”

Nuo was still a little stunned but was able to slip off her shoes and get to the pool side quickly, sitting crossed legged as well. The women across from her had smooth skin, like a women in great shape in her 40s, but dark gray hair...She sat and for a while, there was no sound, just quite, as the women seemed to meditate. Nuo just stared at her.
“You need to calm yourself girl. Try to relax. Close your eyes, try to feel the water in front of you, immerse yourself in it without getting wet.”

It had been so quiet that the words scared her. She almost jumped out of her skin, but somehow managed to calm herself back down. She tried to relax like she said and it took her what seemed like 20 minutes easy to get there. But eventually, a calm breathe took her over, and he body relaxed, falling into a calm. When she finally did, she could feel the water near her. the entire pool, flowing with tranquility just beyond her. She could think of hundreds of ways to use the water, bend it and pull it this way and tat. Make it dance around her and flow anywhere and everywhere. From the distance it seemed like, the voice of Surika Con flowed into her vision of twirling water. She first thought the women was still across from her, but then she seemed to be all around. Still, Nuo seemed transfixed here, in a place in her mind, observing a pool of water, crystal blue and it seemed to float out of the pool in odd and beautiful patterns. She could reach out and touch it, move the water to he will even in her minds eye. The voice spoke to her, soothing and reassuring but also instructing.
“Water has many uses, it is quite possibly the most powerful of the elements for a number of reasons.....While most have the ability to hurt and even take life...water can do those things but also another that they cannot. Water can restore life. Repair the wounded, heal the ailing, and resolve tragic burns. No other element can do these things like water can. Water is in everything. All you have to do is connect with it, feel it. Let it be apart of you. And feel that water in others....”

There was a long pause and the voice was gone. Nuo’s arms began to move on their own. As if the women was controlling them. Her arms waved in a motion she’d never moved them before, and the water responded, swirling around towards her,and around her arms...The water spun and twirled in magnificent motions as the women's voice returned.
“This allows you to redirect the chi in a person, by getting ins touch with the water within a person, through the use of your own water, you turn the water into a catalyst, to heal them, using their own chi, and yours.This draws the restorative properties of all things and increases it, causing them to heal at a remarkable rate, but that rate is determined...by you. The amount of chi you use and how you use the water...Remember, water can be a great force to wipe the world clean of all....but it can also restore all as well.”
The water around her arms began to glow and she felt a great power flow through her and then she pushed t out, sending great light form her arms and the water around her. The light grew, hurting her eyes until she blacked out. She woke up later...laying on the floor an sliding up, the old healing master was gone, a single hand maiden waited for her by the door.
“My Mistress said to wait for you to awake...she had business but she is quite found of you.”

The women smiled as if her mistress was very seldom found of someone. Then Continued speaking.[i]
“She wanted me to remind you, what you saw was real, you now know how to connect with water...never forget it. it could save your life, or more importantly the lives of many many others. Be safe on your travels!”

[i]She said, showing Nuo out. Wow, that was it. A vision, creepy voices and a strange controlling presence. What a jip...but really deep down, Nuo felt something new. She felt that water had gained a new meaning for her....one she would not soon forget.

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Word Count:: 1,641
Technique Trained:: Advanced Water bending [Healing]..

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