The foxcrow had been with the Metal Clan for three months and still Su had yet to fully explore the limits of its ability to metalbend. The revelation of its age, although belied by its playful nature, gave an urgency to it, but also stayed Su's hand. She did not want to wear the foxcrow out unnecessarily by putting it through taxing tests. In the end, she merely declared it a metalbender and part of the Clan. With the cessation of its thievery, the rest of the clan had come to look on it as a mascot, greeting it warmly whenever it would roam, increasingly independent of Su, around the city.
But there was one who did not look upon the foxcrow kindly. Su had not picked up on her daughter's jealousy of and animosity towards the creature who could do what Opal could not; metalbend. Su declaring it to be a member of the clan irritated Opal. Although she was near enough an adult, there was a childish resentment in Opal's heart that this random wild animal might have more of a claim to being a member of the Metal Clan than she, Suyin Beifong's own daughter, did.
Suyin had always taken great pains that her children would be encouraged in whatever talents and interests they displayed, regardless off bending ability. She had pointed out frequently in Opal's youth that there were those in the clan who could only earthbend or were waterbenders. That her father and older brother were non-benders. That the fact she could not bend would not prevent her from succeeding her mother, if she wished, to be matriarch of the clan, referring to Firelord Izumi who was a non-bender yet ruled her nation. But despite her mother's best efforts, there was still an awareness within Opal that she was the only daughter of Suyin Beifong, granddaughter of Toph Beifong, the first metalbender and that she herself could not. She could not bend metal to swoop through the air, as those in her mother's dance troupe did. She could not make knives and swords and armour to protect the city, if ever danger threatened it. She could not twist and spiral metal into shapes as her artistic brother did, and now the foxcrow.
The resentment came to a peak one day. She'd been reading in the small pergola in the garden and had been called away by her younger twin brothers, abandoning her book on the bench. She'd returned to find the foxcrow led full length on the bench, batting at a page, as if trying to get it to turn but being hindered by the wind that was rustling its wings. Opal ran forward as it gave up and gently look the book in its jaws. She wrenched her book away from it, its teeth tearing the covering as she shoved it off the bench.
"Look what you've done!" she cried, staring in horror at the destruction of her favourite book. The foxcrow growled back, baring its fangs, startled by her sudden arrival and harsh actions. Opal was afraid. She could see the still sharp teeth and was clutching the evidence of what they could do to her chest. "Get out of here! You don't belong here." She yelled, determined not to back away as the foxcrow snarled at her. "You're just a stinking stray of a foxcrow that my mother took pity on. They'd kill you in the valley, for being the thieving vermin you are. Look at what you do!" In her upset at her ruined book, she threw it at the foxcrow. It made an undignified dart to one side to avoid the missile. "You destroy everything!"
Her last sentence was shouted to the retreating back of the foxcrow. She found herself surprised that it had fled without any further fight. She calmed down her own breathing and retrieved her book, trying not to cry bitter tears at its ruin. There was bound to be someone in the Clan who could mend it, her mother made sure to secure a diverse range of skills. Of the foxcrow, she thought no more about.