ATLA: Kyia the Brave

Chapter 22: Bitter Work

 "Today's the day! Can you believe it? After all that time searching for a teacher, I'm finally starting earthbending!" Aang jumped up to his feet in excitement which received some grumbles from Sokka. Momo chittered and jumped onto Sokka's sleeping back before running over to Appa's head. "And this place, it's perfect, don't you think? Sokka?" Sokka just glared at Aang with tired eyes. "Oh, you're still sleeping, huh?" Sokka grumbled again and lowered his head back to the ground. "Sorry," Aang whispered. I chuckled lightly from the rock I was sitting on a little ways away. I was holding my right arm to my chest, and even though Katara healed it pretty well, I could almost feel a ghost pain from the burn up it.

"Good morning earthbending students!" Toph rumbled the ground below us and Sokka curled up tighter in his sleeping bag.

"Good morning, Sifu Toph," Aang replied.

"Good morning." I smiled at her and slid off my rock.

"Hey, you never called me Sifu Katara." Sokka sat up and grumbled some more and Toph giggled.

"Sorry, Snoozles. We'll do our earthbending as quietly as we can." At that she stomped the ground and fired up a pillar beneath Sokka that sent him catapulting into the air. He landed in the middle of us with a loud thud. He jumped to his feet, still in his sleeping bag so only his head was visible, and grumbled some more while hopping around before just hopping away.

"So what move are you going to teach me first? Rock-a-lanche? The Trembler? Oh, maybe I could learn to make a whirlpool out of land!" Toph put her hand up.

"Let's start with – move a rock." Aang clapped excitedly.

"Sounds good, sounds good!" I shrugged and moved with them to another edge of the canyon where Toph prepped Aang and me with rocks.

"The key to earthbending is your stance. You've got to be steady and strong. Rock is a stubborn element. If you're going to move it, you've got to be like a rock yourself." Aang nodded, still quite excitable. "Now the actual motion of this one is pretty simple." She punched the rock and it flew into the canyon wall. "Okay, you ready to give it a try?"

"I'm ready." He took the same stance as Toph and punched his own rock, but he just sent himself flying backwards into Appa. Katara walked over to us while Aang recovered himself.

"I don't understand what went wrong. He did it exactly the way you did." Aang moved back over to the rock.

"Maybe there is another way . . . what if I came at the rock at a different angle?"

"No. That's the problem. You've got to stop thinking like an airbender. There's no different angle, no clever solution, no trickety-trick that's going to move that rock. You've got to face it head on. And when I say head on, I mean like this . . ." She propelled herself into the air with her earthbending and slammed her head, forehead first, into the rock, destroying it. She moved over next to me at the third rock. "You try."

I took the stance that she did and looked at the rock in front of me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before I stepped into motion the same way that she did. But when my fist connected with the rock, it didn't move, it broke. And I don't mean in half, I mean it shattered. My arm shot up with pain when my fist connected, it felt like it was on fire again. Toph looked shocked and Aang looked confused. "Well, not what you were going for, but not bad."

The day was full of training for Aang, but no matter what he did, the rock wasn't moving. He was doing well with every exercise she had him do, but he couldn't actually do the earthbending. Finally Toph decided to try something new. "This time we're going to try something a little different. Instead of moving a rock, you're going to stop a rock. Get in your horse stance! I'm going to roll that boulder down at you. If you have the attitude of an earthbender, you'll stay in your stance and stop the rock. Like this!" She showed him the move he needed to do and he looked terrified.

Katara walked up to us seeming unsure. "Sorry Toph, but are you sure this is the way to teach Aang earthbending?"

"I'm glad you said something. Actually there is a better way." She pulled Aang's tie off of his waist and wrapped it around his eyes, blindfolding him. "This way, you'll actually have to sense the vibrations of the boulder to stop it. Thank you, Katara." I winced and backed away, not wanting to be involved. My training wasn't going as poorly as his, but I was definitely struggling with the control aspect. I could earthbend, but not as strongly as even a child half my age could. No matter what I did, the rocks did the opposite of what I wanted them to.

"Yeah, thanks Katara." Aang said it sarcastically in her direction and she just put up her hands and giggled uneasily as she backed away as well. I couldn't watch. I walked around the bend of the canyon and sat on a rock, once again holding the scroll in my hands. I sighed before finally breaking the seal and unrolling the parchment. And on it was one sentence, written right in the middle in red ink.

You will pay.

My heart dropped. I knew that whenever I would open this I wouldn't like what I saw, but I didn't expect that to be it. I felt my hands heat up and the parchment burst into flames. I stomped the ashes into the dirt and quickly walked back over to everyone just as Toph was yelling at Aang. "Yeah, you are sorry! If you're not tough enough to stop the rock, then you can at least give it the pleasure of smashing you instead of jumping out of the way like a jelly-boned wimp! Now, do you have what it takes to face that rock like an earthbender?" Aang lowered his head.

"No, I don't think I do."

"Aang, it's no big deal. You'll take a break and try earthbending again when you're ready. Besides, you still have a lot of waterbending to work on. Okay?" Katara put her hands on his shoulders and led him away.

"Yeah, whatever, go splash around until you feel better." Everyone wandered their separate ways for a few hours, I stayed with Toph to practice for a while on my control, while Aang and Katara worked on waterbending together. After a while though, Toph got frustrated and wandered off. While she was gone, I kept practicing the positions she had me start with. I stomped into pushing a rock and for the first time today, I did what I meant to. The rock shot back into the canyon wall. I was ecstatic, but no one was around to see.

I closed my eyes and focused on the ground, slipping my shoes off and rubbing my bare feet across the dirt. No one wishes to be blind, but I felt that was the easiest way to understand how Toph was trying to teach. I stomped the ground and tried to hone in on the vibrations of the earth the way that she does. I did it again, feeling the fibers of the earth between my toes. I got down on my hands and knees and pushed my fingers into the dirt. "Have you seen Sokka?" I opened my eyes and saw Katara standing over me. I shook my head. "Are you okay?"

"I think so. I don't know." I stood back up and slipped my shoes back on. "Has no one seen Sokka all day?" She shook her head and we went to get Aang. We all split up to look for him and after about an hour of searching, Aang and Toph came back with him.

"You found him!" Katara walked back over to us and embraced Sokka tightly. Aang walked over to show off his earthbending, but I found myself unable to focus on him as a vision blinked against my eyelids.

Zuko stood atop a rocky pillar underneath a thunderous storm, rain splattering all around him and running down his face almost masking his tears as he yelled at the sky. "You've always thrown everything you could at me! Well, I can take it, and now I can give it back! Come on, strike me! You've never held back before!" The lightning in the sky struck from further away than before and Zuko just screamed and punched the air before falling to his knees.

"Kyia?" I opened my eyes and saw that the ground underneath me had cracked around and I was in a small indent in the earth. My face was wet with tears of my own and everyone was looking at me with concern except Aang who was on his knees, one of his hands on his head. "What happened?"

"Another vision. I'm okay."

"They are getting worse. Your eyes were glowing."

"I'm okay." And I walked away.