I'm glad that you're enjoying it so far! But like I said, Cheng still has a bit to accomplish before he teaches Aang, or even meets any of them.

I might consider a POV change at some point, but then I'd have to change the summary.

On longer chapters. I'll try cause that's what I'm here for, but no promises. I have always been lacking in word length.

Also, updates are going to be farther in between. Classes have been going on and up until this point, everything was written before anything was even posted here.

Hope you like it!

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if I didn't have to stay still for the sake of remaining unnoticed I would have started laughing. I could bend metal!

I reined in my excitement. It could have been a coincidence. The chain could have just shifted, very conveniently. I closed my eyes again and focused on the traces of earth I could feel in the metal. This time when I pulled, I felt the rough metal shackle scratch at my ankle under my trousers. That was definitely me...

Still I stayed calm. I spent a good while feeling the metal around my wrists, picking out each individual fragment of earth and puzzling out how I could go about removing them. It was difficult to bend without making any big movements, but I was able to move the fragments around slowly with the odd twitch of a finger or flexed muscle when June was looking away. I found that the normally unyielding metal shifted with the fragments of the earth.

Finally, when I felt confident enough, I readied myself for a fight.

June had been petting Nyla's snout on and off since we stopped for rest, and I waited for one of those moments to act.

She brought her hand up to Nylas snout again, and the animal moved to rest it's head in her lap. Very quickly i curled curled my body, and when I straightened I was shot across to the other end of the path. Out of reach of Nylas tongue and June's whip.

I heard her shout explicatives when I jumped up to my feet and stood in my starting position. But I payed as little attention to her as the situation allowed for a moment.

With two fingers hooked under the band on my wrist, I took a deep breath and pulled. Bending apart the small traces of earth I could sense in the metal took a bit of focus. But a scrap of metal came off in my hand with a ripping sound more satisfying than crumbling earth. The rest of the cuff fell open and hung from my other wrist.

It was after I quickly did the same with the cuffs on my legs that I looked up at june, ready to fight. But she just stared at me, somewhat dumbstruck with the handle of her whip hanging from her hand. "How did you?..." The trembling words died in her throat. Nyla was still standing idly behind June sneering in my direction.

With new freedom over my bending I surrounded her muzzle in stone. She could still breath, but not bite or lick.

She flicked her whip in my direction. But I was able to bring a stone wall out in front of me this time. And when she pulled it back to strike again I flung a rock that knocked the handle out of her hand.

She dove for Nyla's saddle to find another weapon. But by the time she got to the saddle I had a boulder floating above the both of them. Ready to release.

She was breathing heavy, and on her knees next to Nyla. "I-I give up" she put her hands up and slowly made her way over the Nyla's head with hushes, whispers, and coos. Nyla clawed desperately at the muzzle despite June's affections.

I grinned huge, giddy at finally winning, but more so at finding out I could bend metal. I had to have been the first one to come up with it. But I tried not to be so quick to share, she thought I was just strong enough to rip the cuffs off, and I wanted to keep it that way.

With her surrender, I ripped the other cuffs off and dropped them on the ground in a heap. When I looked back at her she was all but cowering next to Nyla.

I grimaced at the sight. She was at bounty hunter, a woman in my line of work. "That doesn't suit you. You were this badass bounty hunter ten minutes ago. Stand up." she did so and took a few deep breaths while I examined myself. I could move almost as well as I could before the toxin, the tips of my fingers and toes tingled slightly though. Probably because of the cuffs. And I had a couple of scratches and pinholes from the whip and Nyla's tongue. Nothing very serious, unless the toxin had any side effects.

I would have started walking back to the small village, but without knowing what condition my body was in, the nearly six hour walk could be dangerous. So I sat down with my back against a tree on the opposite side of the path. "We'll head back when Nyla is done resting."

She looked at me with a frown on her face for a moment. She had somehow managed to calm down the beast, but it still bucked it's head every now and then in an attempt to shake off the stones. "She won't rest until you take off the muzzle"

"As much as I'd like to believe you, I can't. I'm not looking to get paralyzed again" as I spoke, I bent a very large rock on top of her whip. She looked over at it with a start, but brought her attention back to me when she saw what I had done.

"I'll empty out her toxin then. She's stressed right now, if you don't take it off then she'll panic even more. Then I won't be able to calm her down anymore and neither of us will have a ride back." June was lifted off the floor when Nyla bucked again.

"...ok, fine" I removed the muzzle one stone at a time, watching for any reaction from the beast.

"Thank you" she said it in a way that it was not so much a show of gratitude, more like a 'finally, you asshole'.

She didn't attack though. June softly stroked the beasts nose and it stuck the tip of its tongue out. From my place at the other side of the path, I could just see the needle like teeth sprout from the bulb at the end of the tongue when June pinched it. She caught the toxin in a small flask as it dripped. "There, she won't be able to use it for a couple of days now."

"Good. Stay on that side until she's ready to move" she sat down next to Nyla, all the while with a scowl on her face. "You're done trying to catch me?"

"Well I can't fucking do it now. You stunned and then emptied my best weapon, then locked up my next best one."

"... you know you really almost had me."

She scoffed "like you weren't hiding that fact that you could rip metal apart with your bare hands."

"Well, if I couldn't do that then yeah, you would have me." I eyed her for a moment more "how upset are you really though? I mean, I could have just killed you as soon as I got loose, or I could have taken advantage of the fact that you gave up. You'll live to hunt down some other poor bastard anther day... Could be much worse."

She was obviously still upset, but her scowl weakened quite a bit. "Yes, I'm done trying to turn you in...you're the first bounty I haven't been able to turn in. Forgive me for being a little mad."

"Oh, sorry... well not really, but I know how you feel. Not being able to catch your bounty. Not for the same reason you couldn't, but still..." I crossed my arms over my chest and furrowed my brow at her in an exaggerated show off disappointment "You know what you could have done better though?" I continued when she gave no answer "time the effect of your toxin. And I saw other weapons on the saddle, so you must know how to use them. A whip is not the best weapon against a person. And damn you, learn to tie a knot. I was almost loose before Nyla stopped to rest."

"Of course I time the effect of Nyla's toxin. You were just resistant or something. I don't know. And I had already given you enough to paralyze some body parts permanently." She didn't have much to say about anything else I pointed out. But she did seem to acknowledge it as she seemed like she was concentrating on something when she looked away. Any attempt at chastising her more was cut off by Nyla standing abruptly and galloping after some animal that neither of us could smell. She came back shortly with a bloody fox-antelope hanging from her jaws. June ushered me onto the saddle when the meal was finished.

The trip back to the village was much more comfortable. And without having to worry about balancing with a third passenger, or being folded over the saddle, I was free to let my mind wander.

Maybe not so much wander as consider my current situation. It was troubling that I was becoming well known. I already had a bounty on my head, issued by the government no less. That meant that I would either be executed upon being caught, or Yiban would recognize my name. I could imagine him saying that I could forgo execution by joining the army.

Knowing that I would be made to join the army, I made a decission. I would dissappear. So many other people with bounties had done it. And if it weren't for me they would have been successful. I would fade from most bounty hunters memory. And I could master this, as far as I knew, new form of bending.

We rode in silence for the most part. It wasn't much time, an hour and a half by my estimate. However, it was dark by the time we stopped in the clearing around my home. So we must have spent quite a while waiting for Nyla to recover.

I moved up one seat on the saddle so that I could get down using the passenger stirups. "Thank you for the ride back, for giving up on catching me, and getting rid of Xun. Don't come back after me or I'll kill you, so on and so forth. Have a nice night." She was silent for a bit, making no move to dismiss me or agree. "Hey, I was serious."

Without a word she hopped off the saddle and walked towards the the door of the shack which I had never bothered closing. "It's dark out, I'm staying for the night." She said it without hesitation, sternly and with no room for argument, and then stepped into the shack.