"What on earth happened here?" An elderly woman grumbled as she made her way through what looked like a destroyed town. "Everything feels somewhat strange here as if the whole town has been flipped on its head."

Nothing could describe the scene that lay before her. Houses ripped from their foundation, trees uprooted, and large chunks of land looked as if they had just risen from the ground all of a sudden, creating massive crevices that threatened to swallow one whole if they were not careful.

She paused in her steps, standing there for a while before raising her head to the sky where the blazing sun flared down upon her among the wreckage. Her eyes, blind from the day she was born, were not affected by the glaring light.

"This isn't natural, Earthbenders...perhaps bandits?" She muttered to herself as she stretched. She let out a groan of discomfort. "Oh if it wasn't for that strange feeling I got, I would never have left that forest...oh, how it feels to age..."

After tapping the ground a couple of times, she stopped, as if trying very hard to hear or feel something. Her blank gaze was directed far to her right as if seeing something far beyond what was possible with her sight.

As she made her way to continue walking in that general direction, a small stone fell toward her head. It was neither way too fast nor slow, yet any normal person, blind or not, would have taken the hit at the surprise attack. The elderly woman, however, simply caught the stone with one hand as she continued to go onward as if nothing had happened.

"Toph, the greatest Earthbending master, being hit by a rock, hah! What a joke that would be..." she grumbled as she pocketed the stone. Soon enough, sounds of digging could be heard nearby, growing louder and louder as she kept walking, she soon stopped at a clearing. "Now, what do we have here."

A boy, no older than ten, surrounded by many mounds of dirt, was digging into the earth with his bare hands. His appearance was no different from a beggar, with his black hair, practically brown from the dirt, his clothes looking worn out, and his hands, bleeding from both new and old wounds. It was clear looking at him that the injuries were from digging for an extraordinary amount of time.

The woman made her way to the boy who merely glanced at her direction before continuing to dig. Had she been able to see, she would have noted the boy had green eyes, eyes that should have been full of life like any other child his age, not hollow or empty like the one in front of her.

After what seemed like several hours, the boy finally stopped digging, looking at the work he had done before climbing out of the hole. He paused, seeing the woman sitting cross-legged on the ground patiently. He gave a nod of greeting and was about to walk off before the woman spoke.

"I've got what you're looking for here."

The boy turned around to see a white cloth at the woman's feet, wrapped around what seemed like a body. His brow furrowed, he didn't remember the cloth looking so clean. Regardless, he took a peek underneath the cloth, instantly shutting his eyes once he saw what was in there. With visible difficulty, he fixed the cloth back into its original state.

"...Thank you," She heard him mutter quietly as he carried the body into his handmade ditch.

She gave another long sigh as she looked at all the mounds around her. She could very well tell what lay under those piles of dirt and how all those came to be.

"Over a hundred graves," she thought before turning to the boy. "all made by hand."

How long that would have taken is something even she would be hard-pressed to guess. Yet, as she sat there watching the boy cover up the last of the graves, she could only think of one question...

"...Young man...how do you plan to live your life from now on?"

Her words made the boy, who was kneeling in prayer, finally shift in movement after several more hours had passed.

It was dark.

The sun had set long ago...

...and yet, she had remained sitting in the same position for as long as the boy paid his final respects to those at rest.

"...You didn't plan on having a life from now on at all...did you..." It wasn't a question that came from her mouth, but more of a statement.

"...I killed all these people," the boy finally spoke, standing up to face her. "...I killed them...they did nothing wrong...but every single man, woman, and child died in this village because of me..."

He gave a hollow laugh that spoke words of volume to the woman. It was the laugh of one who had no more tears to cry, no more words to say, and only one option that felt right to them.

"...You better leave now...I'm going to bury this whole place along with myself...I don't want you to be caught up in it too..." The boy gave what seemed like his first genuine smile to the old lady since he last. "It was nice to meet you...goodbye..."

With that, the boy gave a stomp, commanding the earth beneath his feet to obey him as he snapped his hand to the side. A tunnel rose from the ground, one that held a distance that was impossible to see with the naked eye. Another stomp created a platform beneath the old lady. And with a wave of his hand, the platform should have been sent through the tunnel, out towards the outside...

...At least, that was the intended effect.

The boy's smile turned into one of confusion as the old lady grabbed his arm.

"Hmph, what a load of bull," She scoffed. "Burying yourself? Bah, such a boring end...So I'm going to propose to you another idea!"

With a stomp of her own, she shot through the tunnel with the boy in tow, eyes wide in shock as they sped through at incredible speeds.

Those shock-filled eyes turned to annoyance as he smashed his leg against the wall, blasting them through the side of the tunnel and out into open sand as they tumbled down a slope.

"What...What IS YOUR PROBLEM?!" The boy yelled as he got up shakily. His eyes searched his surroundings, trying to find the old lady. Other than the wreckage of the small town, she was nowhere in sight.

"Did she get hurt?!" He thought in a panic before a sense of movement was felt from underneath him.

In the next moment, he was sent flying, being thrown far out of the town. With a growl of frustration, he flipped himself, landing feet first as he crashed into the sandy dunes that surrounded him. Getting up without a single scratch, he glared at the old woman who rode a stone platform towards him, the earth assisting in her movement.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" The boy yelled as he threw his arms forward, sending a tidal wave of sand toward the woman.

The amount of sand that he sent towards her was insane, the old woman could only raise a brow as she felt the sheer weight of the attack come towards her, knowing that such a move would be difficult even for the best Earthbenders. Had she had any sight, the very move would have blocked the very moon from her eyes.

The platform she was standing on flung her high into the sky along with several stones, sending her far above the tidal wave that she narrowly avoided, crashing into the wreckage of homes behind her, burying a majority of the town that was behind her.

The boy's eyes hardened as he threw bolts of sand toward her, each one of a decent size, believing that an Earthbender would have difficulty in being able to avoid the blows.

That was if it was a normal Earthbender.

The stones melded together into a bowl of sorts as the old woman created circle motions with her hands, guiding the process, before placing her palms forward as the sand clumps came. Each sand clump was caught by the bowl made of stone with each impact forcing her higher and higher.

"You hit rather hard," The woman grasped onto the bowl, commanding the stones to turn it, making it so that she was aimed head first towards the boy with her feet attached to the bowl. "How would you deal with this I wonder?"

With a sounding crack and boom, the bowl exploded, sending the old woman hurling towards the boy at an incredible speed. In shock at the suicidal-like move, the boy commanded the sand beneath him to make a hand to catch and entrap her, only to have a hole blown through it by a small stone. A stone that the woman had kept in her pocket.

The boy couldn't restructure the hand in time before a blur smashed right through the hand landing in front of him in an explosion of sand. At that moment, a hand collided with his face.

He was stunned as he raised a hand to his cheek, feeling the pain it caused. He looked up in disbelief as the woman rolled her head around with cracking sounds accompanying it.

"Never doing that again," the woman muttered to herself. "What did Twinkletoes call it...whiplash or something? Bah, forget it..."

"What do you want from me?" She looked down at the boy who held his red cheek, looking annoyed. "It was finally going to be over...I could finally see them again...so tell me...why did you take me out of there?"

A fist smashed into his head, causing the boy to squat in pain.

"Hmph, if you wanted to end it all, you should never have met me," The old woman gave a huff as the boy looked up at her. "As if I could leave you there to die, what did you think I should do you brat!"

"I don't know, leave me there perhaps?! That's what I wanted you old hag!"

"What did you say to me you damned midget?!"

The woman took in a deep breath as she raised a hand. The boy, expecting to get hit again, flinched in preparation, only to feel a warm palm on top of his head. He looked up to see the old woman softly stroking his head.

"It's ok...it's ok now, your not alone anymore," she whispered as she drew the boy into a hug.

The boy stood there in her embrace frozen. His arms started to raise, twitching as his hands grasped the woman's clothes. Tears that he thought he already shed long ago welled up in his eyes and the dam finally broke.

He cried.

He, who had been so alone throughout this ordeal, cried.

"It was my fault!... I couldn't control it...I just wanted to show them that I was bender too!..." he rambled on. Some nonsense, others self-blame, the boy just spoke whatever came to mind.

He was just glad he was no longer alone anymore...

...

It's been a good eight years since then, the boy, now grown into a strong young man, stood somewhat annoyed as he stopped the fist of a dark-skinned girl from the water tribe, one who had bent three of the four known elements, fire, earth, and water. And so, the boy known as Tien groaned in frustration as he thought of the only person in existence that could do so, and that existence was currently glaring at him.

"The Avatar...what a pain..." Tien grumbled as she made her move to attack him.

...

/AUTHORS NOTE\\\

Hey, BrotherBook here. Just felt like making this as I've been feeling burnt out from Wandless for months and it's getting to the point where it's hard for me even to write in it. I apologise to those who were waiting on it.

It doesn't mean I'll stop writing it though so don't worry about that. I do still really want to finish it. I really just needed a book to vent on and this one has been in my mind for a long while. There is no update date as I'll probably just write whenever I feel like it as that seems to be best for me in general.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading this, if not my bad, but if so I hope to see you guys around again, seeya.