"Here's to hoping bending classes get a little less boring," Korra says with a resigned half-smile. Even in the advanced class, Korra is leaps and bounds ahead of her classmates.

"Come on, Korra. It's gonna be boring for you," Bolin teases, dropping his arm around her shoulders.

She sighs deeply. "I know, it's just that, well I mean how am I supposed to be normal if I'm so much better than my classmates? I should have pretended to be an earthbender. At least I might learn something."

"Chin up, you've still got your, er, detention with Bei Fong; maybe she'll offer you a challenge."

"Ugh, she probably hates me because I wouldn't be alive if her mom's best friend hadn't died. I'm nothing special to her." Korra shifts into Bolin's arm a bit more, but she crosses her arms in frustration.

He gives her shoulder a squeeze and presses a quick kiss to her cheek as the clock tower chimes. "You better get going. Wouldn't want to be late and give her a real reason not to like you."

"Ugh," Korra grumbles, but she pulls Bolin in for a proper kiss before spinning around and stomping off to Master Bei Fong's office.

When she gets to the Metalbending master's office, the door is ajar, so Korra knocks before poking her head around the corner.

Lin Bei Fong is standing at her desk, both hands firmly planted on the black metal surface while she studies some charts. Hearing Korra's knock, though, she rolls up the scrolls and pushes the desk aside.

Arching an eyebrow at the clock, she turns her attention to the young Avatar. "No time to waste; we'll start with Earth, since that's my specialty and Tenzin says you need it. Speaking of Tenzin, he'll be here later to give you a few airbending sequences to practice."

Any positivity Korra was holding onto dissipated with the mention of airbending. What good was dancing around in circles going to do if she couldn't bend anything?

She drags her feet to the middle of the room where Lin directs her to stand beside a metal table.

"Now, I know you think you know how to Earthbend, but I'll be the judge of that." She produces a rectangular block of earth and drops it with a thud onto the table. "Make me a probending disc."

"What?"

"Earthbending requires just as must finesse and precision as any other element. It isn't just chucking rocks across the room. Make me a probending disc."

Korra sighs and rolls her shoulders, cracking her neck a bit, and sizing up the block, she slices off a chunk which she thinks looks to be the right size for a disc.

"Good start, now how about a hole in the middle?" Lin's voice drips with condescension.

Uncertain, Korra makes to punch a hole through the disc. It looks awful, and she cringes when Lin snorts in derision.

She decides making the impression to give the edges a ridge would likely just shatter the disc, and so she slices of another chunk for a second disc.

"No, no, you forgot the indentation! Finish the first disc." The smirk fades from her face and she adopts a more professorial tone as she continues. "Not all power is brute strength, Korra. Focus on what you want to bend and do it slowly. Think of it like a twig: if you put all your strength into one quick motion, it snaps. But apply even pressure slowly, and you can bend it just right."

Mouth quirking up into a slight smile, Korra closes her eyes and imagines the shape of the earth disc. Then she pushes slowly—too slowly at first—and it starts to compress into the right pattern. Excited to see it work, though, Korra pushes too hard and the disc shatters.

Lin rolls her eyes. "You started off alright, but you lack the concentration. Again. And in this disc can I have a real center and not a volcanic crater?"

Nearly an hour and eleven more or less misshapen discs later, Tenzin enters the office. Korra never thought she'd be happy for airbending instruction, but at least Tenzin's lessons typically included a lot of meditation and not so much physical exertion.

"Glad to see you made it, Tenzin. Korra's been making some earth discs for us. Well, she's been trying to at least. Lacks concentration, this one. Too early for metalbending," she adds in a lower voice, but not so low that Korra can't hear.

"Well, Korra's a strong student, and I've already seen much improvement in my short time working with her. I'm sure she won't disappoint," Tenzin replies, shooting a meaningful glance at Korra.

"Are you finished with your earthbending training for today, Lin? I'm happy to wait a few minutes if you need to finish up."

"No, no; we're done here. She's all yours."

xXx

Inhale. Exhale. Be the leaf. Korra mentally rolls her eyes. This is ridiculous. Sitting on the floor with her legs crossed and her feet going numb, she berates herself for being (probably) the worst Avatar ever. Stupid air, stupid weak element, stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Korra," Tenzin's voice breaks through the cloud of self-deprecation, "I can see you're not concentrating. Relax. Think about something other than bending. Whatever makes you feel at ease."

Home, Korra thinks. Home with Naga and the snow. And Bolin. He loves Water Tribe food; I doubt he'd appreciate the Pole though. Not enough rocks. A smile blooms across her face.

As her thoughts of Bolin turn not-so pure as the driven snow, Tenzin breaks through her reverie once more. "Pull back, Korra. Just find that balance of relaxation. We want a nice, neutral balance: not frustrated, but also not excited. You need to find your center."

Almost twenty minutes later, Korra feels sleepy but no more enlightened than before. Tenzin sighs, but tells her, "Alright. We're done for today. I'll be back next week; I hope you practice this meditation so we can try to push forward after this." His tone is stern but his face is soft.

"Alright, I'll work on it. Say hello to Pema and the kids for me," Korra says.

"I will. Study hard. Don't ignore the non-bending classes; they're especially important for you."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Good grades are my middle name!" Korra jokes ruefully. Tenzin just grunts in response.

"See you next week, Tenzin."

"Goodbye, Korra. Lin—a word?"

Korra grabs her satchel as Tenzin asks Lin's opinion on some political matter or some such; she honestly couldn't care because now it's dinner time and then, their last practice before the first round of the tournament begins.

After filling a tray up with spring rolls and fruit, Korra finds Mako and Bolin at their usual table with the usual company: Tilly is rambling to Mako and another boy Korra doesn't recognize about some news story she heard on the radio, and Nena is listening raptly to Bolin's description of an advanced bending move he pulled off in a sparring match today.

"Hey guys," Korra says, pushing between Nena and Bolin on the bench to sit right between them.

"Hey, how was detention?" Bolin says so intentionally Korra can practically hear the air quotes.

"Ugh. Exhausting. She had me do all these stupid exercises and meditation and my concentration is shot."

"You're gonna be alright for practice after dinner though, right?" Mako interrupts. "The tournament starts tomorrow."

"Yeah, just need to get some food in me and I'll be right as rain."

"We came up with a team name, by the way," Bolin says excitedly around the spring roll in his mouth. He swallows the bite before beaming, "The Fire Ferrets!"

"Not very, er, ferocious," Korra tries.

"No, it's perfect. They're small and agile and no one expects anything but then they bite you with their adorably razor sharp teeth and then you're really sorry!" Bolin can barely contain himself.

Mako arches an eyebrow at his brother's melodramatic explanation, and explains, "Bo's always wanted a pet Fire Ferret but it hasn't been an option. This is as close as he can get for now."

"Hey, works for me," Korra says as she pops a few berries into her mouth.

They finish their dinners and head to the practice gym.

One more day, and it's competition time.