"Can anyone tell me what we mean by the Spirit World?" The teacher at the front of the class was female by zoological description but no further. Her eyebrows bunched together like two angry caterpillars wrestling it out for dominance of the forehead. Her hair had been severely bunched up into a tight ball and forced into submission by a three very matter-of-fact needles. Her teeth ground through sentences like she was trying to dislodge a rather discomforting piece of rock from beneath her teeth.
"The Spirit World is…" Mee, the teacher's star pupil began to answer but was drowned out by the gravel rumble that implied the teacher was about to rebuke her. Mee swiftly raised her arm up into the air which pacified the educational monster standing at the front of the room. The teacher ceased her grind and waved Mee to continue.
"The Spirit World is an alternate realm living in a symbiotic relationship with our own. It allows a flow of energy between the two realms of existential potential and permits bending to become possible."
Mee beamed brightly. Hsiang always assumed that she copied answers out of a book beforehand and had some hidden way of cheating in class. The answer she gave had to be college level and Hsiang doubted that Mee understood any of what she had just said.
"Well done Mee. For those of you in the class struggling to keep up let me explain that. The Spirit World is a different world from our own. What that means, I do hope you're taking notes Liang. For that matter Lixue, if I see you passing any more you'll be burned so badly the school physician won't be able to heal you, am I clear?"
"Yes Ms." Apologized Lixue as she quickly tore apart the offending note.
"What that means is that the two worlds are not the same. Can anyone tell me what Symbiotic means… Hsiang?"
"It means that both worlds gain something from it." Hsiang answered neatly.
" Correct, did everyone hear what he just said? Do try to speak up Hsiang, you're family is poor, not stupid. What we gain is the ability to bend elements, what the Spirit world gains is belief and spirit energy. If we did not pass on into the Spirit World then the Spirit World would die out. Without death their can be no life, and the energy is recycled back into our world through new life and bending." The teacher drew a complicated series of lines and shapes on the board, the half of the class nearest her dutifully copied them down.
"Miss?" Mee had extended her hand again holding a stylus for extra reach.
"Yes Mee, you have a question?" Teacher's pet thought Hsiang, everyone else would have been told to save it for the end of class.
"Why can the Avatar bend all the elements and nobody else?"
Damn, that was advanced stuff. Hsiang had never even conceived of the question before, the Avatar just… well they just could. The teacher smiled for a moment, perhaps she saw the ridiculousness of the question herself and was trying to find an answer without hurting her prize student.
"The Avatar serves as an anchor between the two worlds. Without the Avatar it is proposed by some scholars that the two plains of existence would drift apart and that no bending could be possible. Imagine two plates, one on top of the other, if they are held together they will stay that way; but if they are not held, and you spin them both at the same time, one will fly away.
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever…" Hsiang stopped dead, the entire classroom was looking at him. He had spoken out loud instead of catching the words in his mind and now the teacher was coming toward him. Hsiang briefly glimpsed Mee smirking before the primal weight of the teacher pushed down onto his desk.
"Oh, and you have a better answer?" Even the teachers innocent voice sounded like two tectonic plates jostling for supremacy.
"Spirit energy provides life as well as bending. You're suggesting that without the Avatar the entire planet would rot into decay. My father says that the Avatar is dead anyway." Hsiang was defiant in his answer, he had always been proud, and pride often had consequences.
"You might have a future as a existential theorist, but in my classroom we do not speak out of turn, now leave my presence before I do something we'll both regret. I want a full essay on your alternative to modern Avatar theory in the morning."
Hsiang slid his belongings into his sack and stood slowly up from his chair. He bowed to the teacher, turned, and ran.