Hey! This is my first ever fanfic on this site (and I'm completely new but have waited so long to finally come on here.) I've started so many other fanfics (mostly Avatar) and plan on writing many more. I hope you enjoy my Avatar fanfic, one of the first that I've seen that don't involve the aang gang as the main characters. (but don't worry, there's plenty of bending) Please feel free to comment and critic, the more the better!

disclaimer- duh I don't own Avatar, I wish. However, I do own Misaki, Denji, Inari, and the other characters that I've created and will be in the story later.

sunlit insomnia

One

A loud, monotonous pounding echoed off the door of Misaki's small, wooden hut. Misaki sat on the dirt floor, only separated from it by a tattered, brown cloth, dreading having to open the door. Furiously, she sucked in a breath of air. Her fingers pulled up the dirt underneath them and crumbled it in her hands. Then she stood and faced the door.

Misaki whipped the door open, leaving the man's banging fist in midair. Immediately he attacked her with threats and arguments.

"Misaki!" he screamed in a thick Japanese accent, "This is the third week of the month! Rent was due two weeks ago! If you do not place the money in my hands right now, then you and your mother are out of here, I don't care how sick she is!"

"Denji, listen!" Misaki shouted back in the short man's red face, "I know I have been putting this off, but I just need one more day! I get paid tomorrow and I swear I'll have the money for last month and this month!"

"Now!" he hollered, "I need that money right now, Misaki! I cannot keep letting you wait! I need that money now!

"Just one more day! Please, Denji! Just one more day! As soon as I get home tomorrow the money will be yours! I swear."

A hot tear streaked down Misaki's burning face. As she wrinkled her toes, the ground underneath her pulled up slightly. She urged herself not to earth bend the landlords face off.

"I need that money, Misaki," Denji said, raising his eyebrows.

"My mother and I have no where else to go. What else am I supposed to do!? Just give me one last chance. As soon as I get that money tomorrow I will put it right in your hands. I just need one more day."

She was loosing her tough stance, and feared appearing weak.

Denji grumbled angrily, "Fine!" he shouted, "One more day, and if I don't receive that money tomorrow then I will personally come down here and shove you and your mother out of here. You hear me!?"

Misaki's throat squeezed shut as she strained to keep tears from ripping out of her eyes. She swallowed her words back down and simply nodded in gratitude. The landlord hissed and stormed back to his own hut, leaving Misaki numb in the doorway.

She slowly sank to her knees and cupped her hands over her eyes. Her face burned hot as she forced herself not to cry. Crying showed a sign of weakness. She dropped her hands numbly at her sides and placed her outstretched fingers on the ground. She slowly squeezed her fingers together, pulling up the earth into hard, solid chunks of rock.

'I can't believe this', she thought, ' How did it get this way?'

Weakly, Misaki pulled herself off the ground and wiped the water from her eyelids. Keeping her head down, she glanced at the people standing in their doorways, who had been watching her since the middle of the argument. Only inside her mind, Misaki managed to scream and curse out the landlord.

The tiny hut that Misaki called home no longer looked welcoming when she stepped back inside. Her mother lied in one of the tiny beds that occupied most of the hut. Her mother's glazed eyes twitched down to Misaki's face.

"Misa…" Inari whispered, a fat tear dripping down her right cheek.

Misaki raced over to her mother and knelt by her side.

"I'm so sorry, Misaki," Inari pleaded, "I'm so sorry you have to live this way. If I wasn't so sick-"

"Shhh," Misaki hushed her mother, "But you are sick, mother. And it's not your fault. You know that."

Misaki comforted her mother's fragile body. She let her mother cry into her shoulder, but did everything in her power to keep herself from crying. Once Inari's crying had subsided to a simple cooing, Misaki raised her head.

"I'm going to go take a walk," Misaki said peacefully.

Inari attempted to nod, but only managed to make a small sound of allowance.

Misaki forced a thin smile and headed back outside. Checking both her left and right, she jerked up a hunk of rock with her right hand. Tossing it in the air a few times, she headed into the lower ring village of Ba Sing Se.