[shadow=black,left]PAOLA VASQUEZ[/shadow]

Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth.

Behind a tiny alcove sheltered by a formation of mossy rocks, Paola stands as still as a statue, facing the endless horizon, breathing slowly and straightening her posture. The flame coils hot in her gut, a controlled burn keeping it contained, and she reaches deep into it with one last breath, grasping the element carefully but firmly. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth.

Paola starts her movement, widening the stance of her feet and pulling her fists to her side, angling her forearms parallel to the ground. With a controlled breath, she sends one fist forward, quickly followed by another, sending bursts of fire into the open air. She leans on one foot and sends the other around her, spiralling before kicking high and sending another stream of fire billowing into the wind. She follows the movement with a leap, clasping both palms together with her index and middle fingers extended, the rest curled, bringing her hands down overhead in a sharp, chopping motion and attempting to send a blade of fire crashing down into the ocean—until she hears the sound of another person close by.

Her head moves to the source, obscured by a thick layer of rock, and the distraction is enough to cause the fire to fizzle out, leaving her with nothing to cushion the fall. ”SHIT!” Paola lands face first into the sand with a shriek, her body following soon after and thumping uselessly against the ground. She groans, sitting up and checking the bridge of her nose before sighing, relieved that it isn’t broken.

Paola gets back on her feet, dusting the sand from her loose pants and collecting the discarded pair of flip-flops. She begins to set off, figuring that her training is over for the morning, but curiosity gets the best of her and she quickly pokes her head out from behind the formation of rocks, peering with narrowed eyes at the stranger on the other side… who happens to be waterbending.

The teenager watches for a few seconds, absolutely perplexed, before one particular set of hand movements catches her attention. Paola looks down at her own free hand, flexing her fingers, and then turns and aims it at the water, mimicking his gesture. She knows she can control water—she’s done it once before (accidentally, sure, but that still means that she can)—but nothing happens when she sweeps her hand save for a very tiny ripple that’s immediately lost in a wave.

”Do I really want to do this?” The murmured question gets an answer before she can even take her next breath. Paola marches past the obstruction and makes a beeline straight towards the other, discarding her flipflops a second time as she goes. She only stops to self-consciously run a hand through her curly black hair, shaking it to ensure there aren’t any lingering grains of sand sticking to her head, and when she thinks she’s presentable, she finally crosses the last of the distance between them in a jog, waving kindly at Deniz in greeting. ”Hey! Hey, aren’t you Geo’s friend?”

ooc.
me: haha i rarely have muse nowadays
also me, vibrating in place: HUMAN AU HUMAN AU TIME TO WRITE 473847364737 WORDS

[shadow=black,left]PAOLA VASQUEZ[/shadow]

"Deniz—right, that's your name!" Paola meets his gesture and clasps his hand in hers, giving it an enthusiastic shake. "It's a pleasure to meetcha. Paola Vasquez, resident idiot and daughter of none," she introduces with a wide smile, finally releasing his hand and letting them fall to her sides, although her fingers continue to clench and unclench in excitement. For a while, the teenager considers what she can say to hopefully convince the son of the captain to train a meager troublemaker like her in the art of waterbending, but she quickly enough decides that she should just go for it.

"So I saw you waterbending, which, I thought was pretty cool and you could already do so much, so, like—" Nervously, Paola runs her fingers through her curled hair, tugging softly at the shorter locks at the back of her head as a way to urge herself on. "Can you teach me how you do what you do? Because firebending is easy, you just take all that energy and just let it go, but waterbending?"

To demonstrate, Paola does the same motion she had mimicked before, sweeping her hand through the air, but the water before them offers no cooperation. A globule collects an inch above the water, entirely unsteady and quickly losing shape, but it lasts only seconds before crashing back into the sea. "It's been kicking my ass. I wanna... do what Geo does and, I mean, I don't wanna accidentally burn h—anyone during a spar, you know, and fire does that." She doesn't notice that her ears have gone subtly red; instead, she barrells on, trying to be as convincing as possible. "Can you teach me? Pretty please?"