Because he's insane. [Her tone is flat and obviously being contained. Civility is not her primary asset. Her tone starts to rise again.] He's probably snapped even more after we exposed him as a bender to his Equalist army. The man's a lying psychopath that tried to kill me and overthrow the entire government and society the previous Avatar helped establish.

[Another deep inhale before her voice goes back down again. Exploding and flying off the handle wasn't going to help her situation. No matter how badly she really wanted to.]

He attacked you and he probably would have done so with waterbending if he couldn't bloodbend. Physically even. [Her memory of his physical prowess had not faded, not in the slightest.]

I think he attacked you because he sees your magic as an actual threat. It's why he tried to kill me. Because I was a threat to his personal revolution.