Dreams of Imperial Glory (Avatar: TLA Quest)

[X] Precision

All the ancient earthbending tomes you managed to find in the royal library always talked about the importance of the so-called 'neutral jing', which they claim is the core of earthbending. In fact, they were so obsessed with this concept that they claimed it would not only enhance an earthbender's ability, but would also bring harmony and prosperity if applied to all aspects of life. You are, of course, familiar with the concept of 'jing' as it pertains the state of chi-flow in a person's body, but you were always under the impression that neutral jing was technically impossible, because jing can only exist through action and a state of no action would simply result in no jing at all. You had tried to find out more by asking your tutors and even the captain of your royal guards, but they had all simply reaffirmed your previous assumption that neutral jing does not exist.

In the end, you had no choice but to conclude that the old tomes were simply mistaken and that new developments had eventually superseded their archaic understanding of spiritual philosophy. Still, something always felt to be fundamentally wrong with your technique and your biggest mistake was ignoring your intuition in favor of the supposed 'expertise' of the tomes and your tutors.

After your humiliating failure to display your bending prowess, you had resolved to review every single aspect of your bending to determine why you failed and the topic neutral jing had been one of the most obvious holes in your grasp of bending. You spent weeks in the royal library and even the old archives looking for any references to neutral jing before you finally found something from the most ridiculous source imaginable.

Mad King Bumi of Omashu had referenced it in a nonsensical treatise on pai sho, of all things, that was so incoherent that the only reason you even bothered to read it in the first place was because you assumed it was actually about the philosophies of the Earth Kingdom. The entire essay was practically illegible with the author constantly venturing off into completely unrelated and, frankly, bizarre tangents and then abrupt jumping back to the topic at hand for a sentence before changing to another subject entirely. The only reason you even bothered to spend so much time and sanity attempting to decipher a literal mad man's nonsensical ramblings is that the Mad King is famous for being the greatest earthbender alive and, barring the avatars themselves, arguably the greatest to ever.

According to what little of his disjointed ramblings you can make sense of, 'neutral' jing is not the same thing as doing 'nothing' as you initially believed, but actually 'listening' and waiting for the most opportune moment to act. At first, you had been rather upset at wasting so such time on what has the most generic proverb ever paddled by hustlers attempting to swindle money out of peasants, but as you continued your research, you realized that the Mad King might actually have a valid point. You had initially assumed that all the references the old tomes made to 'listening to the ground' were metaphoric, but, looking back on it now, you are somewhat embarrassed to realize the answer had been in front of you all along.

The original masters of earthbending were the badger-moles, blind subterranean beasts that relied on their ability to detect vibrations through the ground to hunt for food. If a person could master that ability, then she would be able to instantly sense the flow and even buildup of jing around them, which would allow to easily detect not only the location of foes, but also predict their actions by sensing even the most minuscule twitch of muscle or the subtlest increase in heart-rate. Information is power, after all, and Earthbending is uniquely suited for gathering information, since humans are intrinsically creatures of earth and the unyielding nature of the ground makes it a far better transmitter of vibrations than the air or water.

Once you were able to make that connection, everything else started to fall into place faster and your custom earthbending form immediately felt as natural as breathing. The rigid divide between offensive techniques and defensives techniques were much less dangerous, since being able to predict where and when your opponent planned to attack made it trivial to defend against and allowed you to know when it was safe to go on the offensive.

The sheer potential seems so obvious and significant that you cannot figure out why it seems to been retired from mainstream earthbending theory. Perhaps you can ask Master Sui later, should he be able to recognize your talent and not seek to hold you back like your mother loves to.

Taking another deep breath to maintain your focus, you examine the training field for a way to demonstrate your capabilities without giving your mother more ammunition against you. The easiest option would be to levitate another boulder and simply not drop it again, which will demonstrate what you are capable of and show that you have achieved greater control over your abilities, but that would send the wrong message to both your mother and your teacher. Your mother would simply see the demonstration as a sign of petty rebellion and empty grandstanding meant to mock her concerns, which would just reinforce her belief that we are an irresponsible child. More importantly, however, it would also fail to show Master Sui your understanding of the philosophical basis of earthbending as well as how far you have developed your seismic sense to serve as the foundation of your form.

As such, you decide the best way to proceed is to demonstrate the precision and control of your earthbending. With your eyes still closed, you carefully examine the training field and immediately note the large stone coins embedded in the ground that are used by the Earth King military as earthbending-powered artillery. On the far side of the training field, roughly half a mile away, are several mounds of colored sand reinforced with stone on the far end designed to serve as targets. You briefly consider using the stone coins, but quickly discard that idea, because the coins were specifically prepared to be easily distinguishable and raised from the ground to make launching them easier, which defeats the entire point of your little demonstration.

Taking one more deep breath, you steadily coax your chi downward deeper into the ground and can feel a smirk of triumph on the corner of your lips when your senses finally reach something impressive. They say the Royal Palace was constructed over the site of the first human settlement on the continent and that the humans had lived underground in vast caverns illuminated by glowing crystals and dug by the badger-moles to hide from dangerous animals, evil spirits and nomadic barbarian raiders. You never particularly placed much trust in the old legends, but the caravan city is real enough and so are the special glowing crystal formations, which are used through Ba Sing Se as a light source after the Great Fire almost burned the city down because a drunken peasant accidently knocked over a candle.

Of course, you have never actually bended one of these crystals before, but you have seen others do it and you doubt any of them can match up to your talent, so how hard can it be?

"I'm ready," you inform Master Sui as you fall into the basic earthbending stance, while keeping your eyes closed.

"Hmm, yes, interesting. Most interesting," the old man mumbles, more to himself than anything, as he slowly circles you. You can sense his every step and feel the tap of his cane striking the earth, which, curiously, does not seem to carry any of the weight you would expect from someone actually leaning into it.

There is certainly more to this Master Sui then he appears, but, for now, you simply focus on maintaining your stance and controlling your breathing.

You say nothing while you wait for the old man to complete his inspection, but your mother does not share your patience.

"Is something wrong, Master Sui?" She asks, her voice filled with concern as she takes a step forward. You can sense the dirt on the bottom of her elaborate silk robes and on the soles of her slippers despite her best efforts not to let drag them on the ground.

"Wha-oh, no, no. Just…uh, rambling to myself. Yes-no, I mean no," Master Sui quickly responds with a start and laughs nervously. "I-I do that, sometimes. It's nothing, don't worry about it."

The urge to smile or even laugh almost breaks your concentration and you have to resist the urge to open your eyes to see your mother's reaction. The old man is something of a mystery, but, if he manages to keep this up, you doubt there will be a second or even a first session.

"Of course, Master Sui. Please, by all means, continue," she finally replies after an extended moment of tense silence in the controlled, slightly mocking tone she typically only uses when she is at the end of her patience.

"Oh, thank you, Your Highness," Master Sui intones with a deep bow and a flourish of his cane before he turns back to you with a slightly strained chuckle. "Let's…ugh, let's continue, shall we?"

Looking back on it now, you can see why the concept of neutral jing seems to have fallen out of popularity. You are not sure how much more of this circus you can take before losing your sanity. You do not even bother to verbally respond as you go through the practiced motions of the most basic earthbending movement by taking one step forward with your left foot and then stomping the ground with your right. You can feel both the flow of chi down your leg into the ground as well as sense the vibration of the formation of crystal deep blow as your will clashes against its unbending nature.

For a tense moment, nothing happens as you struggle to control the unfamiliar substance, but, after what seems like a practical eternity, you can sense a large chunk of the crystal detaching from the formation and bending to your will. You note with some interest that Master Sui immediately glances downward, even before any physically noticeable tremors reach the pair of observers, but, soon, even your mother can feel the earth tremble at the power of your bending. You can feel small droplets of sweat forming on your brow and back as the sheer complexity of what you are attempting begins to catch up with you, but you refuse to back down and force the piece of crystal to move further and further toward the surface.

After what seems like an eternity of you pushing against a mountain, which is effectively a literal description of what you are attempting, you are finally rewarded with the ground in front of you beginning to deform. The effort was difficult at the first, to say the least, but as the chunk of crystal moved closer to the force, your control over it and the surrounding earth increased. Whereas you had to effectively brutal force pull the chunk up initially, now you can loosen the earth and shift as much of it around and then beneath the chunk of crystal to help push it up.

You almost loss your concentration and have to readjustment your stance to maintain your balance when the resistance to your bending abruptly disappears as the chunk of crystal finally erupts from the ground in a shower of dirt and pebbles. Despite yourself, you open your eyes to gaze upon the monument to your triumph with what is probably an almost childlike expression of wonder. In the light of the morning sun, the famous green glow of the crystal is practically impossible to see, but there is certainly no mistaking the fact that you had reached over a mile down into the ground, identified your target and successfully pulled it all the way up to the surface through tons of solid earth.

"Lili!"

You turn your head to glance toward where your mother is standing with Master Sui and have just enough time to see her pointing up at the sky with her eyes wide in horror before the old man stomps his foot on the ground and a massive dome of solid stone erupts from the earth to encase them both. Confused, you glance up toward where your mother was last pointing and, for a moment, you are not quite sure what you are looking at.

The realization that all the loose earth you had erupted out of the ground had to come down eventually hits you right around the time when the first clump of dirt does as well.

---

Ba Sing Se, Upper Ring, Royal Palace, Princess Zhang-Li's Suite – 71 AG

An hour later, as your handmaidens work to scrub the dirt out of your hair in the bathhouse, you are still fuming at messing what should have been your moment of triumph. To say that your mother was not happy would be an understatement and you were lucky that Maser Sui had the sense to shield her from your mistake, because you suspect that things would have turned out much worse if even a speck of dust had landed on her beloved hair or robes.

"Did things go well, Your Highness?" One of your handmaidens, a teenage girl from some influential merchant house in the Upper Ring named Yan, asks courteously.

"What do you think?" You snap with more bitterness than you intended and making the girl flinch slightly.

"I humbly beg your forgiveness, Your Highness. I didn't mean to insult you," Yan quickly apologizes while sounding on the verge of tears. "Would you like me to leave?"

You sigh heavily and try to wave your wave off her apology as best you can while another handmaiden reapplies your manicure. Bad enough that your mother had given you an earful about proper feminine etiquette before ending your lesson for the day so she can have some private words with Master Sui. Now, even your servants are making you feel guilty and rumors are going to spread that you are an abusive brat or something.

"Relax, you're fine," you drawl out as you lean your head back against the edge of the bath to gaze up at her curiously. "How long have you been in the palace?"

"Two weeks, Your Highness," Yan replies immediately, though you can still detect some tenseness and uncertainty in her voice.

You hum softly as though you were not really paying any attention, but, in truth, the girl's words gave you much to consider. She must be the replacement for the girl you almost crushed with the boulder. The announcement of your gift and the ruination of your wedding scheme have shaken the political landscape in a way the court has not seen in decades. The presence of a new handmaiden could certainly be nothing more than a coincidence, but, frankly, you never believed in coincidences.

"You never have arguments with your parents?" You probed idly.

The girl hesitates for a moment before her etiquette training kicks in and she gives the standard deflection taught in basic etiquette classes.

"I would never presume to compare my lowly experiences to yours, Your Highness," she responds diplomatically.

How dull.

Not that you particular blame her, since you doubt being a servant, not matter how glorified, is something anyone actually aspires to become. She probably had all manners of delusional dreams and ambitions before her parents shipped her off to the palace for their own selfish benefits like how your parents tried to marry you off.

With a sigh, you raise your head off the marble floor to allow Yan to continue cleaning your hair. You can hear her release the breath she had been holding before the calming sensation of a brush going through your hair resumes. Now that the all adrenaline had left your system and you have a moment to relax, you realize with a grimace that your entire body is sore. You never really trained your body and it really showed today that even the briefest physical exertion was more than your body was used to. The fact that you have spent so much time in the library and your personal study over the past few months certainly does not help.

On the other hand, since your mother ended your earthbending training for the day before it really even started, you have the whole afternoon to yourself and nothing on your schedule.


What do you want to do?

[ ] Go to the library
You have basically read everything related to earthbending you can find in the library, but you can always learn more about other topics.
-[ ] (Write-In Subject)

[ ] Go find Master Sui
You learned basically nothing today and you would like to know more about the man who, come tomorrow, may or not still be your instructor.

[ ] Go exercise
The royal palace has physical trainers on hand who can educate you on how to get your body up to shape. Time for them to finally earn their pay.

[ ] Visit Ba Singe Se University
You have nothing better to do and it has been a while since you last visited. Time to go check up on the all new inventions you missed out on.

[ ] Leave the palace
You rarely have enough free time to wander far from the royal palace, so you should take this opportunity to mingle with the masses.
-[ ] Stay in the Upper Ring
-[ ] Visit the Middle Ring
-[ ] Brave the Lower Ring

[ ] Write-In


AN: Despite how the last moratorium went, I'm going to try again, because this vote is much more open ended. Here, you guys will get the options to train new skills, recruit powerful retainers and generally do whatever you guys can think of, within reason, that do not fit into the main 'storyline'.

Also, for anyone who cares, a Chinese mile is roughly 500 meters, so Zhang-Li was able to sense and pull the crystal from roughly one kilometer underground. This MAY change, because distance is hard to grasp and I'm not exactly comfortable giving solid numbers to this stuff yet.

Edit: Moratorium over. Vote away.