Zuko's Baby Sister

Chapter Tweny-One

"Today's the day! Can you believe it? After all that time searching for a teacher, I'm finally starting earthbending! And this place, it's perfect, don't you think? Sokka?" Sokka grumbles and glares at Aang with tired eyes. "Oh, you're still sleeping, huh?" Sokka again grumbles and puts his head back down. Aang whispers. "Sorry." I whine slightly and kissed Aang's cheek. The ground shakes, causing Aang to turn to look toward the source of the rumbling. Toph is standing in the middle with her left hand raised in the air.

"Goooood morning," She puts both her hands on her hips. "earthbending student!" I sat on Appa's head holding Momo while Sokka, still sleeping curled up within his sleeping bag with Aang standing at his feet, and Katara, who is sitting upright in her own sleeping bag. Toph walks over to them.

"Good morning, Sifu Toph."

"Hey, you never called me Sifu Katara." I roll my eyes.

"Well, if you think I should ..." he scratches the back of his head and shrugs slightly.Sokka suddenly sits up, grumbling at Aang. Aang looks down in wonder, and Toph has a smile on her face.

"Sorry, Snoozles, we'll do our earthbending as quietly as we can." I yawn and stretch as Toph slams her left heel into the ground, creating a crack. An earth pillar rises up right underneath Sokka, catapulting him screaming into the air. I giggled and watched the boy.

Katara is standing up and joins Toph and Aang in looking toward the sky. Sokka crashes to the ground in their middle with a loud thud. He immediately jumps to his feet, still in his sleeping bag with only his head visible, and hops toward Aang while grumbling. He stops in front of the Avatar and grumbles to his face, before jumping toward Toph and doing the same to her. Everyone else turns to watch him go.

"So what move are you going to teach me first?" Aang says as he stretches out his right arm, his fist clenched, and brings it down like a hammer. "Rock-a-lanche?" He brings his left clenched fist to his right elbow, while his right arm is bent upward, the fist also clenched. He trembles with the motion. "The Trembler? Oh, maybe I could learn to make a" Stretches both arms over his head and starts to spin around. "whirlpool out of land!" I giggled at his eagerness earning a smile and blush from the boy.

"Let's start with move a rock." Toph said. I jumped to the ground landing next to Katara and smiled warmly.

"Sounds good, sounds good!"

We move to another part of the canyon where Aang and Toph are standing in front of two rocks as Katara and I watch.

"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."

"Like a rock. Got it." Earth bending is my least favorite of the elements if I'm being honest. I think it's terrifying to actually see a giant rock come at you from no where but if my boyfriend has to learn it then I can deal.

"Good. Now the actual motion of this one is pretty simple." She slams the rock against the canyon wall. "Okay, you ready to give it a try?"

"I'm ready." He tries to move it, but instead he is forced backward into Appa. My eyes widened and I move to aid him only for Katara to grab my arm.

"Rock beats airbender!" I sent air at the boy pushing him right into a tree. "I deserved that." I smiled then looked to Aang.

"I don't understand what went wrong. He did it exactly the way you did." I said playing with my hair.

"Maybe there's another way ... what if I came at the boulder from another 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 jumps up and destroys the rock with her head.