Chapter 5: Tour Of The Tower

"Ash is weird."
"Yeah! And Goldwing let him join The Bending Tower?"
Ash woke up the next morning to noises. Two young wolf pups were talking to each other. One was dark gray; the other was dusty orange.
"Hey!" Ash growled. "Can't I get any sleep?"
Ash was a bit older than the wolf pups - they were 5 moons old. Ash was 6 moons. They had told him that yesterday.
"We're supposed to be awake already! Glad we woke you up," the dark gray one said.
Ash sighed. He wasn't warned that they had to wake up early. Usually, he'd sleep in until sunhigh. The sun wasn't even up yet.
"When is the sun going to be up?" Ash asked them.
"Come on, Rusty, you know," the dark gray nodded to the dust orange one. "I'm going to go training, bye."
Rusty sighed. "It will be up soon, we usually get up when the sun isn't visible yet, but almost is."
Ash, Rusty and Rusty's brother, the dark gray wolf were the only apprentices left in the Apprentices' Room. The two wolf pups had said they were given mentors. Ash didn't have one.
"We'd better leave," Ash nodded to Rusty. He padded out of the room, hearing Rusty following. When they made it to some stairs, Ash turned to him. "Can you show me to the yard?"
Rusty snorted. "You don't know the way?" He lead the way, and took Ash to the yard.
Around the yard, many of the Benders were sitting in a circle. Some of their eyes were closed, as if they were still very sleepy. A few were yawning.
Ash sat down in between Dust and Rusty. He was their same height, despite that he was older.
Kabu came out of the tower. He took a seat next to Dust. Kabu didn't look tired at all.
Moments later, although it seemed like moons, Goldwing stepped out of the tower. He stood in the middle of the yard.
"Good morning, Benders. We will resume training another day. Except," Goldwing turned to Ash, "this is Ash's first day."
Ash dipped his head.
"He does not have a mentor yet," Goldwing went on. "I will give him one. Galmega, you deserve to have an apprentice - you will train Ash in the ways of the Waterbending."
A peacock stepped out of the crowd. Ash studied him. Is that Fan's son?
"Thank you, Goldwing," Galmega nodded.
"Good job, Galmega," Fan nodded.
"Good luck!" Stone sneered.
Ash sighed, trying his best to ignore the grumpy raccoon. He turned to Goldwing, who was about to continue.
"Galmega, take Ash on a tour of The Bending Tower and our territory. Airia, you go too," Goldwing nodded to his daughter.
"But what about my apprentice? Charlotte? She needs to train," Airia protested.
"Take Charlotte with you. It'll be a good review," Goldwing nodded.
No one else heard it, but Ash heard Airia growl. Turning around, Airia lashed her tail and stalked off.
"Why is Airia so grumpy all the time?" Ash turned to Galmega.
"She's usually very nice," Galmega replied. "But her brother died because of a Firebender, and now she doesn't trust anyone, except for those she knows well."
Ash sighed. He shook his head, and followed Galmega into the tower.
Inside, the only place to go was a staircase. Galmega walked up it, and at the top were two ways to go - right or left. Galmega went left, and Ash was aware of Airia close behind him.
There was a long hall, and at the end was a dead end, with crane symbols on the wall. There were four rooms - two on one side, two on the other.
Galmega went in the first room. Swords, throwing stars, spears, and many more deadly weapons were in barrels. "This is the weapon room," Galmega reported. "We keep weapons here, which we mainly don't use - but sometimes they might be needed."
"I don't prefer weapons," Charlotte said. "I'd rather use Airbending!"
They went into the room across the hall, where Tiggerkat was sitting.
"As you know, this is the Travelers'-"
"Did you find any Reese Cups?" Tiggerkat asked eagerly.
"Er, no," Galmega studied Tiggerkat.
Tiggerkat sighed and looked out the window. "I'll never see another Reese Cup in my life!"
Airia rolled her eyes. Charlotte went up to Tiggerkat and patted Tiggerkat on the back with her tail. "It could be worse."
Tiggerkat looked at Charlotte. "No, it couldn't. I'm only fed prey and not Reese Cups!"
"Lets go," Galmega nodded to Ash. They left the room, and went to the next room across the hall. It had a lot of prey.
"The prey room....obviously," Airia rolled her eyes.
"Yes," Galmega gave Airia a cold stare. He turned to Ash. "We eat the prey here. It never seems to rot, this room is like Mt. Ice, it's so cold!"

Author's Note:
To be continued. Ash is going to be a Waterbender! I sometimes say, "Waterbender", with a lowercase "w", but now I'll say it with an uppercase. ^^