Darshi choked, struggling to pull breath into her lungs. She clawed at the hand on but her nails were too short to do any damage. It loosened slightly, allowing her to gasp in a few desperate breaths before dropping her to the floor.

She leaned against the wall, rubbing her neck as she took in the Fire Prince. Rage at his features no matter how he tried to smother them and get ahold of himself. He pulled at the ties on his tunic, loosening it revealing a span of chest and leaning against the desk.

“You’re an air bender?”

Darshi took an uneven breath in, still fighting the dizziness. “Yes.” 

She didn’t see much of a point in pretending anymore. It would only make him angrier, and even though she was able to best him at the South Pole, she wouldn’t be able to here. He knew every hidden part of this ship and what it was capable was. It was Darshi that was the stranger.

“How? You’ve been water bending this whole time. I’ve seen you.”

She pulled herself off the ground, leaning heavily against the wall. “I learned how to make it look like I was water bending, but I wasn’t.”

His light brown eyes flickered in the lighting. “How? I will not ask you again.”

“I make a wind around the water and that makes it look like I’m a water bender. It’s very precise. I wouldn’t be able to get away with it this long if I wasn’t.” It was why Jungkook didn’t like bothering with his gift. To him, air bending was more trouble than it was worth.

Darshi liked the challenge, how difficult it was to make people think she was merely a water bender. She had the best control in her family. Her mother lived as a non-bender, it was easier that way. When her father was in the Earth Kingdom, before she was even born, he told her he used to manipulate rocks to make it appear as if he was an earth bender. He couldn’t do it with water though, not like she could. Water was a much more difficult element to control.

Seokjin’s eyes widened, and something akin to admiration grew across his face. “You’re bending… if you’re this good as a water bender you must be untouchable as an air bender.”

“I’m not sure.”

There weren’t exactly any air benders to compare herself to. Jungkook may be able to do what she did if he applied himself, and her mother never wanted to learn. She had gone her whole life without bending. Her mother didn’t see a point in changing that.

“How did you get away during the air bending purge?” He frowned, shaking his head. “It would have been your parents or grandparents, not you.”

“Mom was visiting a village when it happened. They hurried to change her clothes and she blended in with the people. My dad said there was a place many of the children managed to hide in his temple. When the Fire Nation left many of them tried to blend in with other nations.”

“So there are more out there?” He took a threatening step forward. “Where are they hiding?”

“It’s not like that!” she hurried. “If there are other air benders out there I don’t know of them. The only ones I know about are my mother and father, both dead by your armies so you can relax. You already killed them.”

She would not bring up her brother, not even with the threat of death. She would die protecting him before giving him in. They may not have the best relationship, but that did not mean she didn’t love him.

“If there were more like me in my village you would know,” she continued. “You commented before that my bending looked different.”

He slapped his forehead, frustrated with himself. “Your eyes. This whole time I thought there was blue in them, but that’s just what I expected it to be. They’re grey, and your name. Adarshini. That is not a Water Tribe name.” His eyes widened, taking a step back. “Adarshini,” he repeated, as if he were talking to himself. He said it a few more times, shaking his head. “What was your father’s name?”

“Ayan.”

“That was his whole name? Not some degenerate, plebian nickname he had?”

Darshi frowned, holding back a biting comment. “No.”

“Your mother?”

“Monsu.” Before he could ask, she continued, “And yes, it was a nickname short for Adaramonsu.”

“Adar?”

“Adaramonsu,” she corrected.

“Why does your family keep putting Adar in the front?”

Darshi shrugged. In truth, she did not know. She never thought to ask her mother about it. That never seemed important, and neither of them went by their whole name. If it had something to do with air bender culture she wasn’t sure. All she had been taught was the basic monk principles of tranquility and balance, something Jungkook had always struggled with. She knew that the air benders never formed family units either. If the air temples were still around she probably would have never met her parents, and Jungkook most likely would have never been conceived. The monks did not tend to keep romantic ties. She didn’t know anything else about air bending culture. She was raised as part of the water tribe, and that was who she identified with