New generation benders

Soon Herkio became a bit bored. He knew it would take a while before the two or more benders where chosen. It would atleast be an earth, water and fire bender. And maybe sime metal bender or someone that specialized in something. Or maybe even a nonbender. He had always wondered how it was to be a nonbender, he couldn't imagine the life. He had always been surrounded by his family that was benders and had found his bending very early in life.

He opened upp the bag made out of skin that was on his hip. He brought out the water in there and started playing with it. Formed beautiful mini sculptures with ice before melting it again and doing something else. But he stopped when a girl stepped in. She was probably the winner of the earth or fire benders. "Hi" he just said and continued to play a bit with his water before casting a glance at her again, noticing her bloody wrist. He got up and to her, still with the water over his hand. "You're hurt. Let me help you. I'm not that great at healing but I can take care of that" he smiled towards her. And it was always good to clean a wound.

Ela looked up at him. She didn't want to feel obligated to him, she didn't want to owe any favors. However she didn't want a bloody wrist either.

"Sure." She replied stretching her wrist out in front of her so that it'd be easier to heal it. "I'm Ela." She presented herself, she wasn't that keen on getting friends. However she didn't want to seem all that anti-social. Her dad always told her that was her biggest problem. She was horrible towards strangers, at home especially. May the spirits get her for being like this. Ela blames her mother. Her mother was horrible to strangers to. Ela just wanted to protect her family anyway. "I'm an earthbender." She continued. She realized that it doesn't have to be that obvious that she was an earthbender. She was an earthbender... from the Fire Nation. That's usually the funniest thing to tell people around the world.

"What are you talking about? Earthbender from the Fire Nation?" or "Fire Nation? Then you're a firebender? Right? You have to be." was the top ones she usually heard. However she admitted that she must be some kind of mixture considering her lavabending.

Herkio smiled toward her. He was a friendly soul, his family had teached him to be friendly to all, but to be cold and protective if someone gave him a reason to be that. He nodded to her and carefully laid the water over the hurt wrist, he then concentrated and the water glowed and the wound got healed and cleaned at the same time. "There you go" he smiled.

He put his water back in his bag and sat down again in a chair close to her. "I'm Herkio" he presentated himself. "Nice to meet you". He guessed they would be together a while, they had both won, meaning that htye would both train and travel with the avatar. "And I guess that I'm a waterbender is pretty obvious" he laughed a little before getting quiet. He tried to joke, but he knew that his jokes wasn't the best, far away. He was pretty bad at it. "So, you won?" he asked and leaned back in the chiar. "Impressive, wasn't there very many earthbenders in the competition?" he asked. Atleast more than there was waterbenders.

"Of course I won, I don't lose." Ela replied with genuine security. She brought a hand to her neck underneath her scarf and pulled out a small necklace... or rather a volcanic rock. "I'm not that interested in normal earthbending though." She continued as the rock turned to lava above her hand. She clutched her fist and opened it and it had a star shape. "You see, I'm a lavabender." She said as the rock once again turned to red lava and started spinning around her fingers. "I was the only one of those they had." She said, or at least what she saw. "I messed up the arena pretty bad though. It's kind of destructive." Herkio, huh? She leaned back as well whilst the lava kept spinning around in the palm of her hand. She remembered her youth... all those burnwounds. Lava wasn't something to toy around with. Fire was easier to control, lava had to be turned to something else or be steered away. Her father concentrated on the "turning to stone"-part. However Ela focused on the more destructive parts of the lavabending in her own training. Why bother with a burning element if not to use it to its full potential? There wasn't any good reasons at all.

"What tribe are you from? North or South?" She asked to be sure that the conversation had to go on. She had to spend some of the time she had until her glorious escape.

Herkio raised one of his dark eyebrows. Well Ela seemed really confident in herself. But he guessed that was a good thing. Well, it could be bad as well, depending on how confident they where. His eyebrow got higher up as she continued to speak, but not many was just into normal earthbending these days. Almost everything was accepted, except bloodbending.
He actually looked really impressed when she started to bend the lava. "Impressive, I have never met a lavabender before" he smiled and studied it. It was like fire and earth together, melted rock. "I can guess that. Not many lava benders around here I think". He got his water out again and started twisting it in one of his hands. He had taken it from the south water tribe before he left, so he always would have a piece from his home with him.
"South" he answered and made the water to an rose made out of ice, he held it some seconds in his hands before it turned into water again. "I lived there all my life until one year ago when I decided it was time to do something else".

Ela listened patiently as this waterbender spoke. She kind of liked his voice.

"You probably have, it's pretty rarely practiced in public around here though." She replied. "I came from the Fire Nation. I was raised there and my family and I practiced lavabending by the volcanoes." She continued with a slight smile as she made it into something like brass knuckles and stiffened the rock around her fingers. "What have you been doing for a year then?" She asked, was he fighting too? He doesn't seem like the person to have been fighting for a year. Maybe it's some kind of spiritual trip? She herself had meditated her into the spirit world a few times. However since nobody can bend in the spirit world she usually gets out as fast as she can. The spirit world is reachable for her though, that's something. Her father was a spirit-fanatic. A year? That's a lot of time for someone to be traveling around finding themselves though.

Herkio had a soft voice, a bit dark, but soft and friendly. He didn't like to yell or shout. He listned to her and nodded now and then, like people did when they listened, it was really interesting. "That sounds very cool" he smiled and thought about it. He wondered how it was like to be able to bend earth. He oculd just bend water, ice and heal a bit.
"Well I have been traveling around, seeing the world. Before that I had just been in my tribe, not much happens there I can tell you". He smiled. "I have competed in some competiotions but mostly just made friends, seen things and learned things". He made another figure out of ice, a miniature dove. The dove on his shoulder burred up and it it could smile it would have been smiling.

Ela had to admit that she hadn’t noticed the bird on his shoulder until now, and she was surprised because she’d never seen a real living bird this close before, expect when she was a little child… and that wasn’t a happy memory.

“That’s a… dove.” She paused as she had to come up with the name. She had only met the birds living close to the volcanoes, and those birds weren’t nice. The attacked if you got to close and fed you to their children. Monsterbirds. She didn’t like birds, small or big. However she didn’t want to show one of her fears to a stranger so she’d rather pretend that the bird wasn’t there. It was far away too, it wasn’t up in her face so she could handle it.

Soon he melted the icebird and brought the water back into his bag and looked at his own dove. It was snow white, a female, it was quiete big for being a dove.

"Yeah, it is. I have namned her Eis". He patted it carefully over the white feathers and the bird looked very pleased. "I found her some years ago. She had hurt her wing and couldn't fly. I took care of her and since then she always follows me". She had actually helped him some times. One time when he was chased by a wolf in the forest she had went down and distracted it so he could get his water out and get away.

"That's neat, I've never had an animal of my own." Ela replied, she had never needed one. However, her tribe had plenty. Cows, horses, goats, dogs... they had anything and they probably had more by now. It didn't matter to her now, she wasn't going back home anyway. She probably wasn't welcome home. The door opened and she let the rock become part of her necklace again and looked at the door. Someone who can't be anything else but an airbender came through. Her clothes told the story pretty well, she had hair however. She had blue arrows on her body, she was pretty tall... but seemed small anyway. She wasn't wounded and Ela guessed that she had dodged around more than actually fight. She had bare feet, her hair was black and her skin was pale so the blue arrows really popped out. The door closed behind her and when she noticed Herkio and Ela she blushed bright red.
"S-sorry, did I interrupt?" She stammered and crossed her arms and clutched her overarms as if to protect herself.