“But I’m not an earthbender.” Ghazan said, before he could comprehend how stupid the sentence sounded. By the time he figured it out, it was too late, and everyone’s eyes were fixed solely on him.

Ming-Hua leaned closer to P’li. “Hey, is he ok?”

Ghazan shook his head. “No, no, I’m fine, it’s just…” He tried to refocus himself- to remember what had been asked of him. “What did you want again?”

Zaheer cleared his throat. “Well, I was wondering if you could make us some sort of structure to camp out in for the night… since we are in the middle of the woods, and you’re an earthbender.”

Ghazan nodded. Creating a structure would be easy enough- nothing like the bending he was used to, but easy enough. “Alright, do you need that now, or…?”

Zaheer glanced to the side and paused in thought before settling on shaking his head. “No, it’s only noon. We do need it by sunrise though, so…”

“Alright.” Ghazan turned around to the clearing’s entrance, out of habit more than anything. No one had followed him, just as he had suspected.

Zaheer put his hand over his shoulder. Ghazan had known him long enough to recognize it as a symptom of the man’s discomfort. “I’m going to build a firepit, then. So we have a firepit.” He turned to P’li, “You wanna help me build the firepit?”

P’li shrugged and walked over to where Zaheer stood. “Sure.” She gave Ghazan an awkward pat on the shoulder as he took her spot next to Ming-Hua. Almost as soon as he arrived next to the waterbender, she grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him to the edge of the clearing, only sparing a moment to look back at the others. “We’re going fishing.”

Given Ming-Hua’s fishing technique, Ghazan didn’t know why she had brought him along. The waterbender had taken off her boots and waded into a shallow part of the stream, then stabbed every fish she could with spears of ice. There wasn’t much he could do, other than catch the dead fish she tossed at him.

Once Ghazan had accumulated as many fish as he could carry, Ming-Hua returned to the shore. “So, what’s up with you?”

Ghazan scoffed. “I’ve got a shirt full of frozen, dead fish. Not much else.”

“You can’t play that one on me,” Ghazan wasn’t exactly sure what he was playing on Ming-Hua. “I know you too well.”

Ghazan turned around and started to walk back up the path they had cleared. “I’m going back to camp.”

“I just want to know if you’re alright.” Ming-Hua stammered. “You don’t have to tell me much, but… you can still bend, right? You aren’t… broken or anything?”

“Last time I checked, yeah.”

“When was the last time you checked?” Ming-Hua clearly was upset, if she wasn’t indulging in his quips like normal.

Ghazan looked up to remember, as if the sky would help. “When we ditched town a few nights ago, I collapsed a wall on some of the cops. Bending enough, if you ask me.”

“Then why did you say that?”

“Say what?”

“That you aren’t an earthbender!” Ming-Hua near shouted, her voice so sharp it scared away a cluster of birds.

Ghazan had to pause to think. “I don’t know. It kind of feels like I’m not. Maybe it’s a sandbender thing?” By now, Ming-Hua and all their other friends knew of Ghazan’s home tribe. “Sand’s pretty different from earth, at least from a bending standpoint.”

“But you’re still an earthbender.” Ming-Hua protested. “I’m still a waterbender, even if I bend ice! And you’re still earthbending!”

Ghazan shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

Ming-Hua furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t think it’s earthbending. It doesn’t feel like earthbending should.” Ghazan shrugged.

Ming-Hua paused. “Then what does it feel like?”

“It feels natural. Lavabending does, and sandbending, obviously.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How are you not connected to the most fundamental aspect of your element?”

Ghazan couldn’t give an answer, so he shrugged. “I’m going to head back to camp.”

Ming-Hua de-tensed- she didn’t sigh audibly, but her shoulders relaxed. “Alright, fine. Let’s go back to camp, then.”

“So what did you mean by that?” P’li asked, taking a break from her roasted fish kebab to turn to Ghazan, expecting a reply he didn’t have.

Ghazan paused, covering up his silence by eating. It was decidedly, not the best meal he had ever eaten. “What do you mean?”

“Earlier,” P’li continued. “When you said you weren’t an earthbender. I mean, you clearly are.” She gestured to the structure Ghazan had lifted out of the ground and their two teammates sitting under it.

Ghazan put his hand over his neck. “I don’t know, it’s weird.” He cast a glance at Ming-Hua, who looked away once P’li followed her gaze. Ghazan laughed, his friend’s crush was painfully obvious. “Anyways, how’s-”

“No, I want to hear it.” P’li interrupted. She, thankfully, had gotten a lot more forceful about her opinions since they had liberated her. “It sounds interesting.”

Ghazan shrugged. “Alright. I won’t promise this’ll make any sense.” P’li didn’t respond, waiting patiently for his answer. “So… I’m a sandbender, yeah? So I was raised sandbending, it’s just the way we did things out in the desert. And- common misconception, actually. Sandbending isn’t just a style of earthbending, or a subskill like lava or healing or your explosion thing.” He gestured vaguely at his forehead to avoid rudely pointing at P’li’s. “It’s its own art, it’s own form- almost on the level of the other elements. And lavabending’s the same, to a degree. It’s not really earth.” Ghazan paused and waited for a response. “Sorry if that doesn’t make much sense.”

P’li shook her head and put her hand over her tattoo. “No- no, that actually made sense. That made a lot of sense.”

“Really?” Ghazan said. He wasn’t expecting his message to actually land, especially with P’li, the group member he was the least close with. “Wow.”

“I know, right?” P’li smiled and stifled a laugh. “All my life I never thought I would- I feel the same, in a sense, with my firebending. I don’t ever firebend so I’m super disconnected with it. I was never really able to put it into words but… I can’t believe someone else feels the same!”

“Yeah!” Ghazan smiled and lifted his hand in the air. P’li gave an awkward high-five. “Yes! I’m not crazy!”

“Still disputable.” Ming-Hua smirked as she walked around the fire pit to sit next to P’li. “I still don’t get it that much, but if you two understand it, I guess that’s good enough for me.” She shot Ghazan a glance that said everything he needed to know- get out. Ghazan smiled and stood up, not wanting to ruin his friends’ chances with each other or wind up impaled by an icicle. He maneuvered around the firepit and sat next to Zaheer.

“So…” Zaheer prodded the fire with the stick he was holding. “I’m glad to see that you and P’li are getting along better.”

Ghazan nodded, not sure where his friend was taking the conversation. “Yeah, it’s nice.”

Zaheer paused. “I don’t think I understand what you were talking about.”

Ghazan shrugged. “That’s fine.” Zaheer was a nonbender, Ghazan wasn’t expecting him to understand the nuances of how the elements worked.

“No, that’s not it.” Zaheer shook his head. “I want to understand.”

“I don’t know if I can make it make any more sense.” Ghazan shrugged. “That’s just the way it is.”

Zaheer looked down at the fire, as if he was ashamed of himself for not understanding.

It took Zaheer nearly fifteen years and a gained element to understand what Ghazan had said. Somehow, when he took his first step into the air, it made sense to him.

At this point, it didn’t matter what the world labeled him as, a criminal, a terrorist, even as an airbender. He wasn’t really any of that, in actuality. He was just Zaheer, existing amongst the wind and the clouds.

It was hard to tell what impacted his flight more, the teachings he had strived after for years, or an enthusiastic monologue told by a friend over a campfire. The truth of it scared Zaheer more than the thought of falling did.