She is six when she tries to play with the other kids at school for the first time.
She has been sent to a little, private academy, a place to learn from the best away from the prying eyes of the media and people who would only see her as the Avatar's daughter. Mommy and Daddy were very firm about wanting her to be happy. So while she isn't totally happy with the idea of leaving her parents for several hours a day, she goes, her hair put in two thick braids in the front that are then looped through the top of the braid with buffalo-yak string tying them together. The string is strong and holds no matter how she moves, and she runs to catch up with her father as they walk together the first day.
He is a happy parent, a good dad who loves his little girl very much. He does things for her when no one's looking, buys her sweet dumplings and candied nuts and little things he wanted but never got as a kid. He is stern, but he is her world along with her mother. The marketplace is not forgotten, it is simply avoided. Her boots were shoved into the closet long ago and ignored; she has outgrown them.
When she gets to class she says hi to her classmates, who are as varied as the colors of the world. They are every nationality, even Air as Pema's youngest son, Amzin, is attending. He is a quiet, fidgety boy with gray eyes and a mess of dark hair he refuses to have shaved off; his parents permit it because it causes him such distress and hope he'll grow out of it. There are many nonbenders present, as schools are integrated, but she can't tell one group from another. There are fellow Water Tribe girls and some boys in nice traditional navy blues and Earth Kingdom ones in their browns and greens, with just as many Fire Nation ones who stand clumped together, talking and excited.
There are others there that raise her spirits. There is a solemn looking girl with brown Water Tribe skin and bright golden eyes, a grumpy boy with auburn hair and blue eyes, an excitable girl with her black Fire Nation hair in a Water Tribe loops despite her brown eyes, and a cheerful boy with green eyes, light skin and wavy brown hair the texture of a Water Tribe member.
She does not understand why the groups have separated to chat before class. But she will learn.
She goes over to the Water Tribe group, smiling. "Hi! I'm Kyoda. What're your names?"
The first girl, one with her hair put into two simple braids, responds kindly enough. "I'm Ivalu, and the boy with the warrior's wolf tail is Kalleq, and the short girl is Neqi. And-"
"And I'm Timmiaq, and you're mud."
The words are a slap. But she maintains a nervous smile. "Let's play Pai Sho before class starts. That's always fun."
Ivalu smiles, and so does Kalleq. Kalleq pipes up, "I'm really good at Pai Sho! I'll be the best in class."
"Nonbenders need something to cling to," Timmiaq murmurs, causing Kalleq's smile to evaporate. "What about you, Kyoda? Can you bend?"
"Not yet," she admits, and he snorts derisively.
"Then go away. Ivalu and I are going to show Kalleq how to bend and maybe he'll learn how. You're more suited to earthbending, kid." He gets some chuckles from around the room, but when she turns no one is chuckling.
So she goes over to the earthbenders, smile strained. "I'm Kyoda. Who are all of you?"
"Noakki," one boy introduces himself as. "Ignore Timmiaq, he's a bending purist. Says he'll be the reverse of Amon one day. We don't care if you're a nonbender. But my dad says it's bad to hang out with the wrong crowd, so go away."
She frowns. "My Mom's the Avatar. She's not the 'wrong crowd'."
"But you're not your mother, are you?" It stings, and she bows her head as the teacher comes in.
She tries to find a seat up front, but they're taken up by mostly earthbenders, and the one seat that isn't taken, a boy reaches out to block her from so Kalleq can sit there instead. Though one earthbending boy looks at her apologetically, he doesn't object, and she ends up in the middle surrounded by firebenders and waterbenders, both of whom ignore her when she drops her pencil or asks them to pass her a book, and who don't play with her when they break for lunch and play.
The mixed group is afraid of her because she's the Avatar's daughter and they say they don't want to get in trouble by talking to her. She ends up with Ivalu, a nice earthbender boy named Juron, and Amzin. They all act polite and nice to her, but she can't bring herself to finish her lunch or go play games with the others, even as they laugh and shriek and bits of earth, fire and water fly about. She watches with an empty feeling in her stomach and dumps her lunch into a trash bin by the door, heading in rather than watching the other kids play.
Somehow, there's no appeal to it anymore.