Man guys, It's been a scary weekend. I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, and we just had a massive as earthquake yesterday. I had to survive without the computer yesterday (gasp! I know, it was horrible) and as a thanksgiving for the fact that while there was a lot of damage in Christchurch, the only things broken in my house was my brother's lava lamp, my mother's great aunt's doll and a few other bits and bobs. Our chimney is not looking too great either at the moment but at least it hasn't fallen down, yet. Down the street from us a water pipe burst through the ground and is now spurting a 3, 4 metre jet of water all over someone's house. We are also still getting aftershocks, it's unnerving. Yet, amongst all this madness I managed to get a chapter of my brilliant fanfic to you, so please read and review, I need some good news right now!

; )

Chapter 15

Life was pretty sweet from then on. Well, as sweet as living in the middle of the earth kingdom could be, while pretending everything was perfectly ordinary.

She'd almost got caught out a couple of times.

The first was in the middle of earth bending practice with Lee, it was only the third week so Lee still didn't know her that well.

"Right, so, you need to use these movements." He swished his hands forward in a slicing movement downwards. His stance didn't waver and, sure enough, the giant bolder sitting in front of him split neatly into three even pieces. "See?"

"Yeah... so... it's similar to the water slice." Kaiya said without thinking.

"Huh?" Lee looked at her strangely. "The water slice? Is that water bending move or something?" His eyebrows snapped together in a look of puzzlement. "How do you know about water bending?"

Kaiya felt her cheeks flush and she turned away from her new friend. YOU IDIOT! She yelled at herself mentally. How could you compare it to water bending! IDIOT! IDIOT! IDIOT!

"Uh..." she muttered "Never mind. Is it like this?" she swung her arms, wind milling them around and slicing downwards. The rock split messily into three pieces.

"Yeah." Lee blinked, distracted. "You need to keep your hands together more, and your chi needs to be channelled more. You need to want this to be as exact as possible."

Kaiya sighed and concentrated on the rock more. Disaster averted. She blew a wisp of hair off her face and tried the earth bending again.

There were only a couple of times after that that she messed up. The next worse was the day after she sent Sniffles to Kouyo for the first time, just after she had been there a month and a half.

Kaiya fingered the green silkiness of a tunic hanging on a rack. She looked up and down the most popular clothes ally of the market and rolled her eyes.

"Don't people here use any other colour apart from green?" she muttered to Lee.

"Sure." Lee said. "I think..." his eyes glazed over slightly as he thought of all the green in his life. "Well... isn't it the best colour though?"

Rolling her eyes at him again, she raised her hand and neatly smacked him on the back of his head.

"There are other colours better than green out there!" she said crossly.

"Like what?" Lee demanded.

"Well, for example..." Kaiya tapped her chin with her finger. "... My favourite colour is blue."

"It is?" Lee screwed his nose. "Why do you like blue?"

"It's like water" Kaiya said dreamily. "So smooth and cool and lovely..."

"Water is not 'cool'" Lee said dryly. "It's cold and wet and did I mention you can drown in it?"

"Don't dis water."Kaiya said crossly. "It's the best ele..."

"Why do you love water so much? Did you just say it was the best element?" Lee looked really confused. "But you're earth kingdom."

"Uh..." Kaiya suddenly realised what she had been saying. "Look at those pretty flowers over there!" she tugged at Lee's arm, dragging him over to the next ally: the ally of roses. Not a great name really, considering that they sold all types of plants there.

The last slip up was her worst, and the really bad part about it... she didn't even realise what she had done until it was too late.

"Kaiya! Kaiya!" Lee called as he sprinted down the corridor, a couple of the girls poked their heads out from their rooms as he passed, rolling their eyes. "Kaiya?" he skidded to a halt outside of her bedroom.

The door was firmly closed, either she did not want him coming in, she wasn't there or she didn't hear him. He reached out a hand for the door handle, there was no point in knocking, if she hadn't heard him yell she had to be day dreaming in there, and she defiantly wouldn't hear a knock while she was day dreaming. If the door wouldn't open that would mean that she didn't want him to come in, in that case she would have slid the dead bolt across the door.

He reached out for the handle and clasped it slowly. He twisted the knob slowly and stepped back, breath catching in his throat. The door creaked open, revealing Kaiya's room. But it wasn't Kaiya's room as it had been when he had been there last. It was covered in a tidal wave of parchment. It was everywhere, investing the room like a parasite.

Lee stepped inside nervously, he looked to the left and to the right, there was no sign of the small earth bender girl he called his best friend.

"Kaiya?" Lee called out, eyes searching. "What happened to your room?" his eyes skipped over her bed (covered in parchment) and her table (covered in parchment) to the opposite side of the room.

"Oh... the window's open..." Lee observed. Then he realised what was flying out the window. "Oh crap! The window's open!" Lee dived into the room as a ton of paper went flying. He waded over to the window and banged it shut, just before the paper could get sucked out.

"Phew..." Lee wiped his forehead dramatically. He started walking back towards the door, whistling to himself.

"Argh!" he screamed as he felt his foot catch hold of something under the paper, it slipped under the grip of his foot and tripped him. Next thing he knew he was lying on his back on the floor, groaning.

"What was that?" he moaned as he sat up. "These floors are way harder than they look; that hurt!"

He reached down and pulled the offending object from beneath his foot.

"Huh?" he scratched his head.

He was holding a deep blue cotton tunic, about the same size of a ten year old. It was trimmed in white and, if he squinted, he could see white embroideries all over.

"That's strange," He murmured, dumping the tunic back onto the floor.

Next to where the tunic was lying was a piece of parchment covered in a scrawling script. Lee thought at first that they were just Kaiya's History notes or something, until he looked closer and saw it wasn't her writing, though it was similar.

He picked up the piece of parchment, now curious.

Dear Kaiya

I can't believe I'm actually writing to you! I was amazed when I got woken up in the middle of the night by the strangest bird I've ever seen and found it was carrying a letter from you!

Anyway, things are okay over here. It's really strange without you here. Everybody looks at me differently now, I'm not just one of the twins, I'm a single person now and people don't quite know how to go about it. For instance, Dana was talking to me the other day and in the middle of the conversation she just looked over my shoulder and opened her mouth. As soon as she saw no one was there she just shut her mouth and carried on talking to me as though nothing had happened. I knew though that she had thought of something that she wanted to say to you.

Ma was very upset with the whole 'you became a master without her permission' thing. After you left she questioned me for ages, she wanted to know where you had learnt it all; don't worry, I didn't give Gran away.

Master Perrou has had a bee in his bonnet ever since you revealed you're awesomeness, he hates me now but it can't be helped. The other day he got drenched by a couple of five year olds practicing on a balcony above where he was teaching. Most of us cracked up laughing.

I wish you were here; I suck at history now I can't borrow your notes. How are you holding up with the school work in the earth kingdom? Is it better or worse than here? I mean, I'm not sure whether I should be jealous of you or pitying you.

Your brother

Kouyo

Lee looked up from the letter, eyebrows snapped together in his signature look of confusion. Kaiya's twin brother got the letter she sent? He thought. I never knew. And why did the master what's-his-name gets drenched while 5 year olds were practicing. Were they practicing cannonballs or something?

He shook his head and bent down, looking for another letter amongst the pile of blank paper and Kaiya's notes from school.

Dearest Twin sister

How fast does sniffles fly anyway? I only sent that letter night before last and yet here is another letter, attached to the leg of your strangely awesome messenger bird.

What can I say? Oh... the Water Priests were overjoyed for your letter to them. They gave me a reply and I'll send it at the same time as this.

It's great that you have found a friend, this Lee guy sounds cool. The stuff you guys did sounded suspiciously like that prank we benders played on Miss Dew once, do you remember? The giant frozen block of ice we placed above her desk. It was hard to unfreeze it so it would pour down on her head remember? We were only about eight. We had a month's detention but it was so worth it, she was an old hag. I suppose a bucket works just as well, not as good though as ice though.

I'm having a bit of trouble with the water slice, Master Perrou keeps yelling at me; I can't seem to be able to hold it in the air for as long as I need to, should I do more chi exercises? You're the expert here.

Missing you

Kouyo

"The Water slice?" Lee whispered hoarsely. "What?" he dropped the letter and scrabbled on the ground for the next one.

Dear Kaiya

Thanks for your help with my Water bending, you always were better than me, even though I'm being taught at the Water academy with the masters of the northern water tribe and you were taught by Gran Gran in a secret cave in the middle of the tundra.

How's the earth bending training going? You don't really tell me in your letters; is that Lee dude teaching you well? I don't know much about the earth kingdom but is it usual for you only to get a few hours of schooling a day? I'm so jealous. I still have to sit through six hours of writing and maths and history every day, it's not fair.

It's really sad, but no one talks to about you at home any more, it's like taboo, a forbidden subject. I know you're missed at school, snowball fights aren't the same now that there are only two girl benders. We boys have four and it's clearly uneven, with you there we could have had a jolly fight.

I told Dana I was writing to you, I knew she wouldn't tell, she's one of your best friends (apart from me) and I was right. She told me to say 'hi' to you from her. And that she thinks that you're brilliant for being a master. She whispered that she wants you to teach when you get back, if you're ok with that.

Maybe I should ask Gran Gran to teach her. What do you think?

Well, I can't wait for your next letter!

Your Twin

Kouyo

The letter slipped out of his frozen fingers and drifted back to the floor. Lee blinked and watched it fall, brain whirring inside his brain.

Kaiya... can't be...she... earth bender... seen her... his brain skittered around trying to make sense of what he had just read. Water bending? He thought faintly.

He lurched to the door, trying not to slip on the smooth paper. Sprinting down the hallway, he was vaguely aware of the girls from before, rolling their eyes at him once again.