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In the Blood
Title: In the Blood
Author: Dark Puck
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Pairing/character: Krisuk (OC), Hahn
Rating: PG-16
Prompt: Hagalaz from Verve Challenge's Runes - Elder Futhark table.
Notes/Warnings: Child abuse, bloodbending. First-person perspective. OC-fic.
Hagal means hail and is symbolic of uncontrolled and destructive forces.
Guess you could say that it started when my mom died. I was only four, and my dad was, like most of the men of the tribe, a warrior. He couldn't take care of me and fight for the tribe. He did the best he could, but a lot of the time, he'd leave me with my uncle - a man too cowardly for the warrior's life.
When I was eight, my father was killed in a hunt. I was left an orphan, too young to hunt or fight for the tribe. I was saved from being considered a burden because of my waterbending - like many young benders, I was training hard under Master Pakku, learning the ways of the water-warrior.
I learned quickly then that my uncle resented me - I was destined not for shameful obscurity, good only to remain behind with the women and look after the children like he was, but to be a warrior for my tribe. He would tolerate no unmanly behaviour from me: when I cried, missing my father and my mother, he would strike me to make me shut up.
Under the tutelage of Master Pakku, I grew stronger; with the friendship of Hahn, I grew confident. But in my home, my uncle began striking me for the slightest infraction against him. By the time I was eleven, breathing too loud would earn me a beating if he was in a bad mood.
None in the tribe knew, not even Master Pakku or my best friend. I was too shamed to speak of it, and afraid that my allowing him to beat me would make me unsuited for the warrior's life. I hid my bruises, worked up creative lies for where they came from, and became reckless so my lies would be believed. When I was thirteen, I turned into a flirt, to convince the women to teach me their power of healing so I wouldn't have to go to the healers after dealing with my uncle's wrath.
When I was fourteen, Hahn was preparing to ship out with one of his relatives to learn his captaincy. He asked me to go along, because everyone knew that when he made captain, I would be on his ship. Better we learn to work together as apprentices than have to learn we don't work well when he's in charge. I accepted.
When I went to tell my uncle, he flew into a rage. He called me a number of things, 'ungrateful' being the least among them, and he attacked me, beating me worse than he had before. In all honesty, I think he intended to cripple me, so that I would never be able to fight for my tribe or serve alongside my friend.
But something had changed in me. I was a master of waterbending, so decreed not a week before by Master Pakku. I was ready to make the transition from boy to man, and I had been chosen to ship out with a promising young warrior. I was not a useless burden to the tribe. He had no right to abuse me the way he had.
The warrior within me fought with the frightened child my uncle had tried to turn me into, and I went... elsewhere. I no longer recognised the pain of the blows he laid upon me. I was only aware of the water around me in all its forms -- and of the water running through me, and the heavy pulse of it in him. I knew then that all I had to do was stop that pulse, and he would stop in turn.
I seized that pulse, and stopped it. It tried to keep going, but I held on, until it no longer fought me. And when I opened my eyes, the man who had been the terror of my childhood was dead. That pulse had been his heart.
I lay where I had fallen, watching him, and I knew two things then: that I was free of him, and that if I told anyone what I had done, I wouldn't be allowed to leave with Hahn.
The healers who examined his body said that he had died of a heart attack. They looked me over, because I had bled on the ice and it had been seen, but I had healed my wounds so that there was no evidence of what he'd done. Men do not heal, therefore the blood must have been old. I think Yugoda may have suspected, but she said nothing.
I didn't understand the gravity of what I discovered in my desperation that night until after I had shipped out with Hahn. I was aware of the water in the bodies of the men around me, and experimentation on my own body taught me that I could control men with my bending.
It was then that I realised that I hadn't just defended myself - I'd murdered my uncle with a weapon he couldn't fight. I... came very close to shattering that night, and woke Hahn to tell him everything. Like any good friend, he first hit me and demanded to know why I hadn't told him what my uncle had been doing before. Later he addressed the bloodbending... in probably not the best way imaginable, but he's never been too good with social cues.
But it was pure Hahn, so I knew he didn't view me any different, which helped a lot. I still swore him to secrecy - that kind of curse wasn't something I wanted getting out.
Current Location: my bed
Current Mood:  bitchy
Current Music: my sneezing. OHNOEZ SWINE FLU
Tags: au, challenge: runes, character: hahn, character: krisuk, fandom: avatar, story: c'est la vie
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