Let's start this again

“Unnh…” Shoda groaned as she shifted herself in the hammock for what felt like the hundredth time that night. It was hot, hotter than it had been all summer, and this summer was hotter than any she could ever remember. The rest of the village felt it too. Roburt said it was a good sign; that the world was returning to the way it had been before the Great War over one thousand years ago.
But none of these thoughts helped Shoda feel any cooler. To make matters worse, not only was it hot, but the miles upon miles of swamp outside her door made it muggy too. So Shoda lay in her softly swinging hammock, trying her best not to touch herself or anything else, and praying for a breeze.
“Laok, are you awake?” She whispered into the darkness.
“Am now,” groaned her brother from the other side of the stifling hut, “And thanks a lot too, I’d only just gotten to sleep.” He added grumpily before shifting himself into a more comfortable position.
“Oh… sorry,” Shoda mumbled, but she needn’t have bothered. The soft snores emanating from the far side of the hut made it clear that Laok did not have the same trouble falling asleep that she did.
She sighed again and screwed her eyes shut, determined to ignore the sweat pouring off her brow and force herself to sleep. She was only partially successful. She fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning, waking frequently then dropping off again. It was the farthest thing from restful that could be had, so when she woke up in the morning to find a fish dancing on her chest she was significantly less than amused.
The tiny, yellow river fish jerked to and fro, its useless gills straining as it suffocated. Shoda grabbed the fish and tumbled out of her hammock. She was out the door and down the ramp, into the swampy water faster than it took to cough three times. Carefully, she dipped the tiny fish into the slowly moving water, her own lungs burning in sympathy.
The fish didn’t swim away; it just lay there, bobbing on her fingertips, twitching feebly. She cringed as she realized what she was going to have to do. If her lungs seemed to burn now it was nothing compared with how they were about to feel. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She concentrated her entire being on the limp fish that bobbed at the ends of her fingertips and slowly, painfully slowly she felt bits of herself seeping away from her. Conversely, the fish’s twitching became stronger, its thrashes held more purpose until, with a final flick of its tail it sped off Shoda’s fingertips and disappeared into the murky water.
She opened her eyes again and turned around. There in the doorway stood her brother, arms crossed with a smug grin plastered across his face. “Ye liked ye little wake-up dance eh sis?”
“I’m going to kill you Laok!” and Shoda raced up the ramp and flung herself through the door, tackling Laok to the ground. “How DARE you twist one of those fish! You were torturing it couldn’t you see?” Every other word or so was punctuated by a slap.
Laok grunted and swung his weight around until he had his older sister well and truly pinned. During the last year he had finally gotten his growth spurt and was using the advantage of his added inches to full effect. “Oy Shoda! It’s just a fish. I don’t see why you’re getting all up in arms about it! Besides, Roburt told us to practice.”
Shoda squirmed in Laok’s viselike grip, unwilling to give up, “You should be practicing by healing small hurts like normal people, not torturing small animals!”
“Psh, you know I’m no good at that namby-pamby healing junk.”
“That ‘namby-pamby healing junk’, as you call it, is one of the most powerful forces known to Human and Jothani-kind alike!”
Laok just rolled his eyes and snorted as he levered himself up off of Shoda.
His sister, however, wasn’t finished, “No, listen to me Laok! Roburt said he hadn’t seen talents like ours in his whole life!”
Laok rounded on her, his lavender eyes blazing, “Roburt’s lived in a tiny village in a backwater swamp, what the crack does he kn-“
“He was court leech to the Carolin crown! Roburt said so!”
“Roburt said so, Roburt said so.” Laok glared, his tone dangerous, “You know what your problem is Shoda? You’re too ready to believe anything that old man says. I say we find a good Jothani teacher and leave the humans to themselves.”
“You are the absolute worst!” and without another word Shoda turned on her heel and stormed out of the small hut she and her brother called home.
The tepid water of the swamp sloshed around her calves as her toes sank into the muck of the swollen river-bed up to her knuckles. But that was why Jothani did so well in the swamp. They didn’t need any kind of special shoes to stay above ground in this muck. Their large, splay-toed feet did just fine.