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Airbenders are pretty thoroughly repopulated now, but they're still minorities anywhere but the handful of enclaves that have retaken the open temples or integrated into the populations that have woven into them. Beila doesn't live in one of those enclaves. She lives in Republic City. Benders are a minority, airbenders more so. She's the only one in her class. It could still be a coincidence that she's supposed to do her history project on Avatar Aang, her some-number-of-greats grandfather, and not casual stereotyping. Whatever. Her partner's not a bender at all unless he's very quiet about it, he's just a random cute boy who sits to her left. Dao, that's his name.
"Hey," she says. "When's good for you to meet up and work on this thing?"
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roc_on
roc_on
Beila whistles, Liqing takes off, and up they go!
It's not far, if you're a roc. They land on a roof, Beila wafts them off the bird, Liqing gets a treat and goes to do whatever rocs do when they aren't ferrying airbenders, and Beila leads Dao down a staircase into the house.
It's not far, if you're a roc. They land on a roof, Beila wafts them off the bird, Liqing gets a treat and goes to do whatever rocs do when they aren't ferrying airbenders, and Beila leads Dao down a staircase into the house.
roc_on
"Liqing's great! People keep asking me why I don't have a sky bison, like everybody has a sky bison, they have no idea how much those things eat, the ancient nomads could only keep them because they moved around all the time," says Beila. "Liqing, on the other hand, fishes for herself, and the bay fills itself up with fish neat as you please. So. Have you got any thoughts about our topic? 'Cause 'Avatar Aang' is a pretty broad subject."
thinklikethis
"Well, everybody knows about all the famous stuff he did after he got out of the iceberg," he says. "But I kind of wonder more what his life was like before that, you know? Do we know much about the time he spent with the original Air Nomads?"
roc_on
"Not all that much. He wasn't much of a writer, himself, all the primary sources are people who knew him and most people who knew him then were dead by the time anyone knew he needed to be written about. Basically we know the general biographical details - which temple, what years - and some things about the people he visited while he was traveling. And what he taught his kids and the Air Acolytes about the culture. Much of which, mercifully, has been discarded since, I wouldn't really want to shave half my head. The tattoos would probably look cool, though," she adds thoughtfully.
roc_on
"It'll depend on how liberally we interpret the assignment, if we count Air Acolyte practices, but you know what, Aang totally founded the Acolytes, they count. And they were really good recordkeepers even if they've basically died out as a separate-from-airbenders thing." She heads for the bookshelf and starts scanning titles. "Good idea."
roc_on
She almost tells him he's cute out loud.
Instead she finds them books - she hands him one on Air Acolytes and she takes one that's a general Aang biography with a few chapters on his early life. "You got something to take notes with on you? I have some actual paper around, but we don't have a spare screen or anything."
Instead she finds them books - she hands him one on Air Acolytes and she takes one that's a general Aang biography with a few chapters on his early life. "You got something to take notes with on you? I have some actual paper around, but we don't have a spare screen or anything."
thinklikethis
"Yeah, I'm covered."
He did in fact bring a screen. It's not a very good screen, but it's a screen.
He did in fact bring a screen. It's not a very good screen, but it's a screen.
roc_on
Beila fetches hers - she breezes it and catches it rather than getting up and crossing the room - and detaches the chordpress into her hand and starts typing up an outline as she scans the book in her other hand. "If you wanna divvy up the books differently, speak now," she adds.
roc_on
Typetypetype indeed! She sets her book down briefly to turn on update protocols so his screen will have a remote copy of her work. "Need your screen number," she says, and she rattles off hers, although she has to consult the spot it's written in the corner.
roc_on
She taps it in.
"Error," she says, "version model not compatible with your FireFerret system. Well, that's annoying, I don't think I even have a cable to do it hardware-style. I guess we can check each other's work the old fashioned way."
"Error," she says, "version model not compatible with your FireFerret system. Well, that's annoying, I don't think I even have a cable to do it hardware-style. I guess we can check each other's work the old fashioned way."
roc_on
"No big deal." Typety-typety. "You want to go with the presentation or the essay? Essay's longer but some people don't like public speaking."
roc_on
"Cool. And the test of whether the teacher is elementalist or not will be whether he confesses that he was hoping I'd do a demo after we go up and we talk about slides."
roc_on
"Awesome, I'm good enough at multitasking that I'd rather also chat intermittently while writing about how Aang always spoke fondly of airball and the thing he most regretted about having only one airbender kid was that he didn't have anybody to play with later in life."
roc_on
"I don't think I've had a class with you before this year. What do you do with your time?" she asks idly, turning a page and adding a bullet point.