A flying leap from the last boulder sent him tumbling to the sand below, but he managed to roll to his feet and turn the momentum into a mad dash down the beach. A glance to his right showed the sun well above the grasp of the reaching waves.
"You're late again, Aiguo. Why am I not surprised?"
"Nice to see you, too, Bohai. They're even later than I am. Surprised at that?"
"They had to wait for Avatar Roku to have time to begin the ceremony. I assume you had some similar excuse keeping you in bed?"
Aiguo couldn't think of a good comeback, but he pretended he simply couldn't waste the breath to respond as he continued his sprint. If he was just passing Bohai, that meant he had another quarter mile to his post. The ritual should have reached them by the time the sun crested the horizon, and he didn't know how much lateness he could count on.
His feet left deep divots in the tiny particles of shattered rock others might have called 'sand', and idly he toyed with the idea of Bending himself a solid path. He'd be sure to get there in time, but part of the ritual was purity. He'd spent a day fasting, and a week refraining from Earthbending, all for this moment.
Five minutes and two near-collapses later, he reached the flat rock marking his spot. He sat down and immediately regretted it, as the blood rushing to his head after all the exertion made his skull feel like it was going to explode. It took several deep cleansing breaths before he felt he might pull through. Another few minutes spent in light meditation, facing south along the beach, and he could see the clouds rising from the ground, miles away. Not fog, not droplets of water from the sky, from the ocean. Silicates, tiny bones, a thousand other sources all ground into a fine powder and now flung to the breeze by the force that was changing the land, sent to dance in the sunlight.
Aiguo stood up, easily dropping into the basic Earthbending form. Fists at his hips, body facing the direction of the approaching rite, face at the rising sun. For the space of a heartbeat, he wished he was one of the true masters who could simply feel the ground being manipulated beneath him, but he still knew the moment it was time.
It helped that the cue was the beach being flung out to sea.
Shifting into the first active form was automatic, as was the ground's reflex to raise in a hump. From there he lost himself, a week's worth of pent-up energy flowing through him, through the rock he stood on, through the entire continent. Dirt, mud, from deep beneath the surface of the water responded to his call, to his command, his plea. Together, he and the land danced as they had done so many times before. The ballet of a tiny human form shifting through the sand was mirrored in exquisite perfection a thousand times larger as rocks and boulders from beneath and behind him were flung at the waves, harsh retribution for the slow torture of being worn down, grain by grain, fraction by fraction all year long, all repaid with interest this one day.
It always felt like a moment, but the sun was nearer it's zenith by a full length when he finally stopped. Dropping to his knees, Aiguo studied his handiwork. Before him, where the sea had just this morning reached a bare ten feet away, a new coast ran almost a quarter mile before disappearing once more into the waves. What had once been fine sand, obedient to the ocean's ministrations, it was now jagged edges, large rocks, a few trees caught up in the upheaval. Fresh turned earth, untamed. It was easy to think it was untamable, but having done this year after year taught him otherwise. By the next time they performed the ritual, it would once more be ground down by the caress of the waves and the feet of the tourists into nothing more than sand.
Looking north, Aiguo could see the new coastline, just in the distance settling into place as the last Earthbender he could see finished. The line extended, four or five benders to the mile, almost completely circling the continent. A new quarter-mile of coast, of farmland, of beachside resorts that would one day become mountain hamlets. A new quarter-mile of the Earth Kingdom, multiplied by the entire circumference.