Lay Me Down

"Then, instead of stomping all your energy into the ground, you push off that foot and slide forward, forcing your arms out in front of you." Katara demonstrated this herself by the ocean, planting her feet solidly after a short jump and shooting her hands straight out in front of her. A wave of the ocean water followed her movements, flowing towards the bank and then hovering outward over the ground. "From here, you can do some stuff with your hands, arms, etc." She twirled her fingers and the water mimicked her movements, large spirals and icicles twisting and writhing in the air. I marveled at the beauty as the sunlight shone through the airborne water particles.

She held them still and turned to smile at me. "Now you try!"

I inhaled deep and started the routine, trying to perfectly imitate her but at half the speed. Slowly earth began to stretch upwards, then down with my foot as I stomped the ground, and then out in front of me as I moved my arms away from my chest. Twirled my fingers like Katara, and the earth began to break. I closed my eyes to focus hard on each and every particle of earth, down to the smallest dust. Shaping, forming, carving even the tiniest pieces. When I opened my eyes, the air around me was filled with rock leaves of all sizes, hanging in the air like dragonflies over the water.

Katara gasped. "Iwa, that's beautiful!" She took one of the leaves gently between two fingers, examining the fine details in wonder.

"Pft!" Toph snickered from her spot on the beach, stretched out lazily with her arms behind her head. Katara's overdress and my shirt lay on the sand next to her. "Why the heck would you want to bend like a waterbender anyway? I mean, you're an earthbender. Leave the cutesy detailed stuff like leaves to the waterbenders- no offense, Katara."

She scowled in Toph's direction. "Well, I took some anyways."

"I mean, earthbending just isn't like waterbending. They're opposites. If you mix them together, you just get mud."

I frowned at her statement. "What about the Avatar?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "He's the Avatar. He doesn't count."

I just sighed and turned away from her, back to face Katara. No time to get in another argument with her. She'd been pushing my buttons ever since Zuko and I got here. She was even nicer to Zuko than she was to me. I couldn't begin to guess why. "Can we do more?"

"Why? Are you slowly turning into a waterbender? Hate earthbending that much?"

I'm sure I visibly tensed, like each word was a stick she hit me with. "Leave him alone, Toph. We're having a lesson here," Katara interrupted her heckling and started on another routine. Why me? What is wrong with me that she feels the need to pick me apart?

"Or are you just too weak to bend like a real earthbender?"

I'd had enough. There were two routes to take here: either I lash out at her and give her what she wants, or I go to "Quiet". Quiet is a place I made up while I was a Fire Nation slave. When soldiers made fun of me or just tried to get me riled up so they had a reason to punish me, I had to get my child brain somehow away from the situation. So I invented Quiet. It's just a way for me to block everyone out- almost like shutting down my brain. Not quite like I'd become deaf, but like they were speaking another language. Like I couldn't understand the words they were saying. But the reason I hated doing this was because this put me back into the mindset of that scared, nervous little kid. The crap that I had to listen to before I made the Quiet. All the terrible names they called me... Going to Quiet made it all come back for a moment.