IndigoRose

The non-lucid dream ended, my final waking. At the same time, I was chewing on an oak leaf, trying to earn some last-minute points. Was it a visualization or was it still a dream? The leaf was tough and tasteless.

I started to run. This could turn it into a dream or stabilize it. And as I was analyzing it, I was sure I couldn't feel my real body or any signs of real life leaking in - I was dreaming, running through my childhood neighborhood!

I decided to taste another leaf, this time from a red Japanese maple. It was softer that the oak leaf but still with papery texture and only a mild earthy and woody taste, reminiscent of the smell of decaying leaves in autumn. To get some minor points in, I also did a reality check, even though the run probably already covered the points for stabilizing/RC.

Noticing that the dream was nicely solid, I choose to move on to the three-step task.

I raised my hands a bit, slowly turning around, looking up and talking to the skies and the whole of the dream around me: "Hey Dream. Give me a waterbending master or expert on water magic." Not many people were around and I felt unsure about this. Then I saw some people coming from the side street and one of them approached me, smiling. He had tan skin, dark hair and a round friendly face, looking Hispanic. "Are you him, the waterbending master?" I asked. He nodded and joined me. I don't think he told me his name but later in the dream, I knew his name was Pedro.

We were walking towards my childhood home.
"How much experience do you have?" I asked.
"Six or seven years," Pedro answered.
"Six or seven years to become a master bender? That's not bad." I think I expected someone with tens of years of experience but this sounded good too.
I got worried about no water in the area but Pedro pointed towards a nearby ragged area with water puddles glistening between grassy mounds. He approached one of the puddles, squatted next to it, dipped his fingers in, and asked, shaking the water off his fingers: "Do you know, where this water comes from?"
"Uhm, from the air?"
"Yes." He started to talk about rain and water in a philosophical way which made me impatient. There simply wasn't enough time to learn deeply about water.
"Can you tell me how to do this?" I asked, interrupting him. He shook his head, probably disliking my unwillingness to appreciate his approach to teaching.
I tried to draw the water towards me but failed. So I run to the other puddle, wanting to try to create waves. After failing at that, I splashed the water to get some initial waves that I wanted to amplify. But shockingly, there was a drain and the disturbance of the water caused by me made all the water drain out. And the first puddle somehow disappeared too.

On my right side, there were now people, sitting in rows, possibly watching something. I stepped through them, Pedro following me and watching me. One of the men there had a bottle of water and I asked him to pour a little bit into my hands. In a dream a couple of days ago, I was told that my power was to manipulate the surface tension of water. So I asked the water in my hands to stay as a round ball and I threw it into the air.
It flew high and then dropped back down, falling on the head of some unfortunate lady. It somewhat worked, the water stayed together, but I saw it more as a fail because it was far from impressive.

The next part of the dream was confusing. My activities attracted some unwanted DCs' attention. More specifically, they started to chase me and looked like they wanted to arrest me. I found a swimming pool that was covered with thick plastic and started to uncover it. Pedro was still with me but didn't interfere in any way.
I was sitting on the edge of the pool. Unable to do anything with water in it, I considered jumping in, knowing that I can't drown. DCs had unusual guns and tried to shoot me with some weird projectiles but I managed to dodge. Unable to see anything to gain from jumping into the pool, I somehow retreated.
Pedro was on his way out too and I called out to him to wait for me and together, we left the scene.

The last part of the dream was kind of a debrief. Pedro looked differently, maybe it wasn't even him anymore. We were talking about waterbending only allowing subtle changes. But that was in real life. I said: "But in a dream, I should be able to do more with it." And he said: "In a dream? Yes, you should be able to do more in a dream."
Then the dream ended.