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“Tulip?”
Madia looked around the forest glade as silence settled around her. Silence meant that her twin sister, Tulip had wandered off again, and taken her abundance of words with her. Madia sighed, picked up her basket half-full of tart spring berries, and went to look for her.
She checked Tulip’s usual spots: an old tree stump with flowers growing from it, the clumps of baby berry bushes Tulip liked to talk to, the clearing where they’d planted her tulips where she said she wanted to be buried-
Madia shook her head. Still her little sister eluded her.
And then she heard voices.
She scampered over a fallen log, careful not to drop her basket, and ran through last year’s dead leaves, watching her feet so she didn’t trip over any roots. She quickly found herself in a grove surrounded by boulders, pressed right up against the side of the mountain with the faint smell of smoke hanging over it.
And there, standing with her little arms folded in front of a scary-looking man with a scar, stood Tulip, not the least bit afraid (because of course she wasn’t, Tulip was never afraid).
Madia, however, had enough fear for both of them and her hands shook as she took in the scene. She set down her basket and took a tentative step forward. “Tulip!”
Her sister spun around and smiled. “Oh, Madia, hi! Look, I met a firebender!”
Before Madia could get too caught up in what a horrifying sentence that was, the scary man spoke. “You should get out of here, little girl, go with your sister.”
“No,” Tulip turned to him and Madia sighed, because that was the look her sister used when she wasn’t going to budge.
“Tulip, we need to go home, uncle Kal will worry about us,” Madia tried.
“He won’t admit he’s a firebender!” Tulip announced, pointing an accusing finger at the man. “But I saw him! And he’s not a soldier, his clothes are all patchy and he doesn’t have armor! He won’t introduce himself! Or say if he needs help!”
“Just leave him alone!” Madia huffed, stamping her foot. “Please!”
To his credit, the strange man had not attacked or kidnapped them, so he was probably not a Bad man, but Madia also didn’t want to make him angry and test that theory.
“You shouldn’t look for firebenders anyway,” said the man. “Go home.”
“The last firebender we met in the woods was nice!” said Tulip.
That gave the man pause. “The last firebender you met?”
“Mhm! He’s our friend!”
Madia gave up. If they got kidnapped uncle Kal would come rescue them. She walked over and sat down on the ground next to her sister.
“You befriended a firebender?” the man said incredulously. “Was he also a deserter?”
“Aha! So that’s what you are! A desert-er!” Tulip jabbed her finger. “I don’t know what that is. But no, he was just lost and we found him. We didn’t tell anyone he was a firebender, and we won’t tell anyone you’re a firebender either, even if you are grumpy.”
The man glared at her and Madia decided that if they were to carry this conversation further there needed to be introductions, so she stood. “What’s your name? I’m Madia and this is Tulip. We’re twins.”
The man folded his arms. “And you regularly go around bothering rogue firebenders, do you? That’s a good way to get yourselves killed- or worse, your home destroyed and all this-” he gestured to the forest. “Burned to ash. Fire is extremely dangerous and deadly, and you should not seek out those who wield it.”
“I wasn’t seeking, I was picking berries and I saw your fire leaping through the trees,” said Tulip. “It was beautiful, so I went to look.”
“Fire is not beautiful. It is destructive and damaging, even seductive to some, but it is not beautiful, not when it destroys all it touches.”
Tulip gasped. “How can you say that when you’re a firebender? Of course fire is beautiful!”
Madia saw her sister’s hands moving, but before she could do a thing to stop her Tulip had a tiny flame hovering in her palms. Madia sighed and sat down again to listen to whatever was about to unfold.
****
As soon as she called a little flame to her hands, the grumpy man stepped back, a look of shock on his face.
“You,” he whispered. “You are a firebender?”
“We both are,” said Tulip, looking down at Madia, who was sitting on the ground listening. Madia was the best sister ever. Most sisters would have dragged her away from a stranger, Madia just sat down to listen.
The grumpy man started talking again. “How can you say that fire is beautiful when you yourself are burdened with it?”
Tulip scrunched up her nose. “I’m not burdened with it, I’m…” she thought for a moment, then smiled. “I’m friends with it! We work together and make beautiful things! Madia helps too!”
Tulip moved the flame to one hand and waved the other over top of it, making a little wave that glittered, and twisted as she wiggled her fingers. Madia blew a little flame of her own into Tulip’s and they twirled around each other, spiraling as Tulip drew them up, up, until they burst into sparks that floated down like fireflies.
Tulip giggled and looked back at the grumpy man, who looked very, very confused.
“How did you do that?” grumpy man asked.
Tulip called the flame back to her hand and breathed in and out, watching it grow and shrink like Zuko had taught her. “I listen to the fire and it listens to me. I love it and I respect it and I em-emmm-”
“Hug it,” Madia supplied.
“Yeah! I give it a hug!” Tulip hugged herself and willed the fire to do the same. It twirled around her, a gentle warmth emanating from it before it disappeared again.
“I have never seen firebending used like that before,” said the man, slowly sitting down in front of them. “Who taught you?”
Tulip sat down too and leaned against Madia. “Umm, well, uncle Kal and mama taught us a little, but not much because we have to hide it, and our friend we met taught us some too. But mostly we just learned it on our own.”
“You have had no training?”
“Not really.”
The man studied them. Tulip shivered, and she felt heat start rolling off Madia in response. She smiled, nuzzling her cheek against her sister’s shoulder.
“But despite what you have shown me, you know fire’s destructive power,” the man said. “I’ve seen the scorch marks on the stones of the mountain pass, and the burned trees and fields. You know it can destroy.”
“So can every other element,” said Tulip. “Fire’s not special. We’ve seen rockslides and floods too and those destroy things.”
“So can wind,” added Madia. “Wind storms tear the roofs off houses sometimes.”
“But water can heal. Stone can be used to build. And without air, we die,” said the man. “Fire consumes. It does not create, or heal.”
Tulip felt a flare of anger in her chest and sat up. “Doesn’t heal? Doesn’t create?” she squeaked. “If I get too cold I’ll die, so Madia’s warming me up! When my flame goes out,” she called a little flame to her hand, then snuffed it out. “I die. I get weak at night and in winter when the sun isn’t around. And the sun makes everything grow! Without the sun we’d die too, and there would be no flowers!” she sprang to her feet. “And every time the bad firebenders come through the pass and destroy everything, the flowers bloom again brighter when they’re gone. There’s even trees that uncle Kal said need fire to help them start growing!”
Tulip walked forward and grabbed one of the man’s wrinkly hands and stared into his eyes. “Fire is a tool just like a hammer or a sword; it does whatever the person who wields it wants. If that person wants to use it to destroy things then it’ll destroy things. But if someone wants to use it to make trees grow and pretty fire pictures, or to keep warm when it’s cold and cook nice food and keep away scary animals, then it’ll do that too! You-” she poked the man in the chest. “Decide what it does. And you-” she poked him again. “Decide if it destroys or makes things grow. A tool can’t control you.”
“But fire has a will of its own,” said the man. “And it can easily spread out of control.”
Tulip tilted her head. “I thought that’s why firebenders were supposed to learn to control it.”
The man looked surprised, and Tulip smiled.
“It’s okay, someone just taught you wrong,” she patted his hand. “You have to be careful with fire, but you have to be careful with every kind of bending, they can all hurt people really bad if you aren’t careful. But being scared of fire and thinking all it can do is destroy is silly! It’s so much more than that! Haven’t you ever lit a lamp when you’re scared in the dark and when the firelight shines around you aren’t scared anymore? Or cooked nice food on a campfire? Or used fire to protect someone?”
“Or make something to help people, like uncle Kal does,” Madia added. “He’s a blacksmith and he makes really good tools for people.”
“Yeah!” Tulip spread her arms wide and smiled. “Fire’s wonderful if you use it right!”
The grumpy man looked conflicted. “But it will consume you. I’ve felt it. The power it takes to hold it back from destruction-”
Tulip sighed dramatically and flopped down onto the man’s lap, making him splutter. “Then you need to fix how you think about fire. You see,” she steepled her fingers together like grown ups did when they were serious and looked up at him solemnly. “I’m dying. My heart is bad. My flame won’t burn for long. But there is so much beauty and wonder in the world!” she grinned. “And I want to add to it! I want to make people smile and feel happy, I want to make their lives brighter! And my fire, inside here,” she tapped her heart. “Lets me do that. Fire is life, not death! So,” she sat up and folded her arms. “You need to embrace your fire, give it a hug! Accept that it’s yours to control and be happy it’s there! And then you won’t feel like it’s burning you up.” She smiled.
The man stared at her. “You are a strange little girl.”
“Thanks!” Tulip beamed at him.
The man chuckled and Tulip felt elated. It was working, she was helping!
“I think I would like to meet the uncle of such a strange pair of little girls,” said the man. “Where is your village?”
“Oh, we’ll take you there!” Tulip bounced up and grabbed his hand. “You can have supper with us! Uncle Kal is an okay cook, but he’s better at being a blacksmith. Madia and I are learning to cook from him and some nice people in the village though!”
She tugged the man along and Madia fell in step beside her. As they walked out of the glade, Madia whispered to her and Tulip gave a little squeak.
“Oh, right, I forgot, you didn’t tell us your name!” she gasped. “We can’t take home a stranger!”
The man looked amused, which was a great improvement over his grumpiness earlier. “My name is Jeong Jeong.”
“Great! I’m Tulip!”
“Yes, your sister introduced you earlier.”
“Okay, I’m just making sure you know!”
And as she skipped to the village between her sister and new friend, Tulip’s flame burned bright in her, warming her down to her very toes.
Yes, bringing light to others was definitely how firebending was meant to be used.