bentbloodline | Continuing threads

It might be best if--

[He catches himself before he says "if you see it for yourself", and rephrases. There's only a split second pause as he catches himself.]

--I demonstrate. Would you mind holding out your wrist? It won't hurt, but you'll get the basic idea much faster with a demonstration than with a verbal explanation.

[Nice catch, Tarrlok.... in any case, it's a little odd, but Matt's curious, and so he complies, holding his wrist out. From what he knows, waterbending is..... magic? Would he be creating water, or just manipulating it?]

[This is so weird for Matt to think about]

All right then. I'm ready.

[Tarrlok sticks to something very simple. He uncorks the waterskin and a moment later, Matt will hear the sound of water flowing quickly toward him in a thin, concentrated stream before it wraps around his wrist. It's flowing very quickly, making the water nearly impossible to pass through. Instead, it's got the durability of some good rope.]

I can turn it to ice as well, but I don't want to cause you more discomfort than a damp wrist.

[He releases the grip after a few seconds, returning the water back to its skin as quickly as it came out. The cork is back in a moment later. He doesn't want to jump too quickly into fighting. With this amount of water available, he's not going to be able to do anything too impressive with it, but if they find themselves in a desperate situation, he can pull water from plants if it's necessary.]

[For a man with enhanced senses, it's really disconcerting. He feels Tarrlok's movements, feels the water moving on its own, through the air, and it feels unnatural, like nothing Matt's ever experienced before. Months later, he's still learning new things about the people here]

That's.... incredible.

[It kind of puts it all in perspective for him, honestly. It feels a little silly to keep his own abilities a secret, when everyone has their own extraordinary power or another. Not that that's going to stop him] Was it something you were born with?

[He can't help being a little curious, honestly]

Yes. For those born with the ability, bending shows up at some point in childhood. Usually no later than the age of eight, but often earlier. Fortunately, it's much weaker in childhood than in adulthood...although that didn't stop me from being a little terror in snowball fights as a boy.

[He doesn't have a lot of great childhood memories associate with bending, but being a waterbender kid in a snowball fight was always pretty great. He'll never deny that.]

I can imagine. [Especially if it's a commonplace thing -- children wouldn't need to hide their powers, like he had to. They could be open about their abilities, they wouldn't need to hide it.]

[But even that is a bit of a fantasy. Chances are, it wouldn't be that easy]

Is there stigma surrounding the abilities?

[Well.]

Not particularly. There is a group in the United Republic called the Equalists who believe bending is the source of all evil and oppression in the world...but they are domestic terrorists and their opinion does not reflect population as a whole. While it is true that there are criminals who use their bending to coerce and hurt people, the majority of benders are ordinary citizens who don't cause problems for anyone.

[Granted, there are specific bending abilities that are regarded as especially dangerous, but it's not quite the same as being stigmatized when there's a logical reason for it.]

There's actually a very popular sport centered around bending. It's simply known as pro-bending, and involves teams of three. One waterbender, one earthbender and one firebender.

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