A/N: Sorry this took me so long to finish! I like the ending of this chapter, though...tell me what you think!

Ayonn hated wood with a passion.

At home, everything had been made of stone. She hadn't known anyone who didn't have at least a stone floor. But the Hughes family – their apartment was made all of wood. She'd never been so helpless before. Ayonn had to resort to the kind of methods her teachers had drilled into her, methods she had never learned naturally.

It wasn't so much that she hated wood as it was that she hated the true blindness it brought with it. Ayonn was confused about where she was half the time, and the other half she was confused as to how she'd gotten there. She'd tried going to the spirits for help, but they'd been closed off from her. She hadn't even been able to access the Avatar State.

She tried to avoid thinking about what that meant.

Spending most of her time at Eastern Headquarters was a good distraction; Ayonn wandered around, trying to find a secluded spot to practice her bending. Nine times out of ten, she got sidetracked by interesting vibrations in the walls around her. She'd run into Lieutenant once or twice and been sternly shepherded back to Colonel's office.

Oh, she knew those weren't their real names. Ed had explained the concept of rank until she'd been tempted to fry the chair under him, but she still didn't understand why anyone would introduce themselves, in a casual setting, using their military rank. Eventually, just to shut him up, she'd pointed first to Lieutenant, then to Colonel, and stated flatly, "Hawkeye. Mustang."

He'd nodded, relieved. Ayonn had gotten up and walked out of the room.

She'd come upon a previously unknown part of the massive complex. Things like boulders pounded the walls, and people shouted, stomping the floor with enough force that she could feel it even all the way out here.

She ran to the door the vibrations were coming from, feeling a bubble of happiness well up in her chest. There were benders here! They just kept their abilities confined to this practice arena in Headquarters.

Ayonn burst into the room and came to a dead stop.

Ed was busy taking out his frustrations on the alchemy practice room when Ayonn ran in. She stopped just shy of the huge pit he'd created, causing him to catch his breath in terror.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Ed was caught off guard by her voice – it sounded little and lost.

"I'm practicing," he said gently. Transmuting a bridge over his chasm, he walked over to her and took her hand. "What are you doing here?"

Her face crumpled in on itself. Ed knew she'd been ripped from her home and family, but he'd never seen her look this abjectly miserable. "I thought…I thought you were a bender."

That was a word he hadn't taught her. While her mastery of the language was almost complete, she was unexpectedly prone to mashing words together and creating nonsensical phrases. Most of the time it kept Ed and Al in stitches, but today, faced with Ayonn's pain, it didn't seem nearly so funny. "I don't know what a bender is, Ayonn," he told her.

If you'd asked Ed what would have happened next, he would have guessed that she'd break down crying. He certainly wouldn't have guessed that Ayonn's face would break into a smile. "I can show you," she offered. "If you show me what you were doing."

That was a fair enough trade. They hadn't discussed alchemy at all during their lessons. Ayonn knew, theoretically, about the rank of State Alchemist (that epically long discussion about rank versus names came to mind), but she was under the impression that a State Alchemist was a kind of specialized soldier.

In a way, Ed supposed, she was right. He was too curious about 'bender', though, to worry about disillusioning her now.

"I'm an alchemist," he began.

Two hours later, Ayonn was thoroughly boggled and had decided she would never, ever try alchemy. Ed had walked her through equivalent exchange and transmutation; he'd scratched transmutation circles in the dirt even as he explained that some alchemists didn't need them. (That, at least, made sense. Firebenders didn't need an elemental source, did they?) He'd borrowed a radio, smashed it, and repaired it right in front of her.

Ed definitely deserved her respect. Alchemists went through much more training than benders did, and apparently – she wasn't completely sure on this point – alchemy wasn't an innate ability. You had to have some sort of teacher, even if it was just a book.

He'd be an interesting sparring partner, she knew. The skills alchemy fostered were vastly different from those of bending.

Once he was done, he sat on the ground and faced her, tapping his automail fingers. "Will you stop that?" she asked. "Tap with the other hand if you want, but that one's giving me a headache."

He stopped, but still sat with his head cocked up toward her. "Are you going to show me your bender?"

Ayonn laughed – she couldn't help herself. "I'm a bender," she started, mirroring his lecture. "The act itself is called bending. So yes, I'm going to show you my bending." Pausing for a minute, figuring out how to start, she said, "Bending is something you're born with. It's an elemental power. Traditionally, people are classified into four nations based on their bending."

"Is everyone a bender?" he interrupted.

She shook her head. "No. There's a certain look to different nations, too, but that's become more muddled since people started mixing." She paused. "Or so I'm told. Anyway, benders are born into one of four powers – water, earth, fire, or air. Each bending art prizes different strengths, but knowing all four styles makes you nearly impossible to defeat."

"What kind of bending do you do?"

Laughing, Ayonn swatted at him. "I'm getting there, Elric. One person is born with the powers of all four elements, and their job is to keep balance in the world. That person is called the Avatar."

He caught on quickly; she had to give him that. If she could see him, she imagined she'd see wide eyes, and behind those, a churning brain. "You aren't – are you?"

She didn't answer him, choosing instead to shoot a pillar of earth up between them. "Earthbending – chikyuu mage." Flames roasted the pillar. "Firebending. Kasai mage." Air extinguished the heat. "Airbending. Ea mage." Finally, she doused the pillar with water collected from the air, freezing the spout as it hit. "Waterbending. Mizu mage."

Ed had to admit to himself that he was a little bit in shock. Ayonn's gift – bending – was more impressive than any alchemy he'd ever seen.

The scientist part of him wondered what else she could do with it. The part of him that liked having a friend his own age squelched the scientist, stomping hard on it for good measure.

He cleared his throat. "That's amazing."

She looked happier than he'd ever seen her. The secret must have been a weight on her shoulders, and – oh. "That explains how you see!" The puzzle had been nagging at him ever since she'd made a run for that stupid cup, ever since she'd looked so lost in Hughes' apartment. "You see through the earth! That's why you get lost in Hughes' apartment – it's made of wood!"

"Yes." Ayonn scowled. "I never went anywhere made of wood at home. And you people keep shoving me in cars. The vibrations move too fast to see anything, and I get sick." She perked up a bit. "But I can feel the water in bodies, and I can tell where people are. So if I feel someone sitting, I can be pretty sure there's space to sit near them."

"Fascinating," Ed breathed. "And that's how you knew Al's suit is empty."

"What is wrong with him?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Alchemy."

The look on Ayonn's face said plainly that she didn't believe him, but she let the matter lie. She stomped the boulders he'd ripped out of the ground back into his pit, and they walked out of the practice room. Throwing a hand out, she stopped him in his tracks and turned to him. "Ed," she said hesitantly, "would you spar with me sometime?"

"Of course," he answered, and with his head so close to hers, he thought for a minute that they might kiss.